i 



7 

> 



THE BRIDGEWATER TREATISES 

ON THE POWER, WISDOM, AND GOODNESS OF GOD 
AS MANIFESTED IN THE CREATION. 



TREATISE III. 

ON ASTRONOMY AND GENERAL PHYSICS. 
BY THE REV. W. WHEWELL. 



ET H.EC DE DEO, DE QUO UTIQUE EX PHjENOMENIS DISSERERE AD 
PHILOSOPHIAM NATURALEM PERTINET. 

NEWTON, CONCLUSION OF THE PRINCIPIA. 



ASTRONOMY AND GENERAL PHYSICS 

CONSIDERED WITH REFERENCE TO 
NATURAL THEOLOGY, 



BY THE 

REV. WILLIAM WHEWELL, M. A, 

FELLOW AND TUTOR OF TRINITY COLLEGE, 
CAMBRIDGE. 



CAREY, LEA & BLANC rf A R D, ! * ; * 

CHESTNUT STREET. 

1883. 



TO THE 

EIGHT HONOURABLE AND RIGHT REVEREND 
CHARLES JA3IES, 

LORD BISHOP OF LONDON. 



MY LORD — - 

I owe it to you that I was selected for the task 
attempted in the following pages, a distinction which 
I feel to be honourable; and on this account alone I 
should have a peculiar pleasure in dedicating the 
work to your lordship. I do so with additional gratifi- 
cation on another account: the Treatise has been 
written within the walls of the College of which your 
lordship was formerly a resident member, and its 
merits, if it have any T are mainly due to the spirit 
and habits of the place. The society is always pleased 
and proud to recollect that a person of the eminent 
talents and high character of your lordship is one of 
its members; and I am persuaded that any effort in 
the cause of letters and religion coming from that 
quarter, will have for you an interest beyond what it 
would otherwise possess. 

The subject proposed to me was limited: my pre- 
scribed object is to lead the friends of religion to look 
with confidence and pleasure on the progress of the 



8 



DEDICATION 



physical sciences, by showing how admirably every 
advance in our knowledge of the universe harmo- 
nizes with the belief of a most wise and good God. 
To do this effectually may be, I trust, a useful labour. 
Yet, I feel most deeply, what I would take this occa- 
sion to express, that this, and all that the speculator 
concerning Natural Theology can do, is utterly in- 
sufficient for the great ends of Religion; namely, for 
the purpose of reforming men's lives, of purifying 
and elevating their characters, of preparing them for 
a more exalted state of being. It is the need of 
something fitted to do this, which gives to religion its 
vast and incomparable importance ; and this can, I 
well know, be achieved only by that Revealed Reli- 
gion of which we are ministers, but on which the plan 
of the present work did not allow me to dwell. 

That Divine Providence may prosper the labours 
of your lordship, and of all who are joined with you 
in the task of maintaining and promoting this Reli- 
gion, is, my lord, the earnest wish and prayer of 
Your very faithful 

And much obliged servant, 

William Whewell. 

Trinity College, Cambridge, 
Feb. 25, 1833. 



NOTICE. 



The series of Treatises, of which the present is one, is pub- 
lished under the following" circumstances : 

The Right Honourable and Reverend Francis Henry, 
Earl of Bridgewater, died in the month of February, 1829 ; 
and by his last Will and Testament, bearing date the 25th of 
February, 1825, he directed certain Trustees therein named 
to invest in the public funds the snm of Eight thousand pounds 
sterling; this sum, with the accruing dividends thereon, to be 
held at the disposal of the President, for the time being, of the 
Royal Society of London, to be paid to the person or persons no 
minated by him. The Testator further directed, that the person 
or persons selected by the said President should be appointed to 
write, print, and publish one thousand copies of a work On the 
Power, Wisdom, and Goodness of God, as manifested in the 
Creation; illustrating such work by all reasonable arguments, 
as for instance the variety and formation of God/s creatures in 
the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms; the effect of di- 
gestion, and thereby of conversion; the construction of the hand 
of man, and an infinite variety of other arguments; as also by 
discoveries ancient and modern, in arts, sciences, and the whole 
extent of literature. He desired, moreover, that the profits 
arising from the sale of the works so published should be paid to 
the authors of the works. 

The late President of the Royal Society, Davies Gilbert, Esq. 
requested the assistance of his Grace the Archbishop of Canter- 
bury and of the Bishop of London, in determining upon the best 
mode of carrying into effect the intentions of the Testator. Act- 
ing with their advice, and with the concurrence of a nobleman 
immediately connected with the deceased, Mr. Davies Gilbert ap- 
pointed the following eight gentlemen to write separate Trea- 
tises on the different branches of the subject as here stated : 

THE REV. THOMAS CHALMERS, D. D. 

Professor of Divinity in the University of Edinburgh. 
ON THE ADAPTATION OF EXTERNAL NATURE TO THE MORAL AND 



INTELLECTUAL CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 



10 

JOHN KID, M. D. F. E. S. 

Regius Professor of Medicine in the University of Oxford. 
ON THE ADAPTATION OF EXTERNAL NATURE TO THE PHYSICAL 
CONDITION OF MAN. 

THE REV. WILLIAM WHEWELL, M. A. F. R. S. 

Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. 
ON ASTRONOMY AND GENERAL PHYSICS, 

SIR CHARLES BELL, K. H. F. R. S, 

THE HAND: ITS MECHANISM AND VITAL ENDOWMENTS AS EVINCING 

DESIGN. 

PETER MARK ROGET, M. D, 

Fellow of and Secretary to the Royal Society. 
ON ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE PHYSIOLOGY. 

THE REV. WILLIAM BUCKLAND, D. D. F, R. S. 

Canon of Christ Church, and Professor of Geology in the University of Oxford, 
ON GEOLOGY AND MINERALOGY. 

THE REV. WILLIAM KIRBY, M. A. F. R. S. 

ON THE HISTORY, HABITS, AND INSTINCTS OF ANIMALS. 

WILLIAM PROUT, M. D. F. R. S. 

ON CHEMISTRY, METEOROLOGY, AND THE FUNCTION OF DIGESTION. 

His Royal Highness the Duke of Sussex, President of the 
Royal Society, having desired that no unnecessary delay should 
take place in the publication of the above mentioned treatises, 
they will appear at short intervals, as they are ready for public 
cation. 



CONTENTS. 



[Within the last year or two, several works have been pub- 
lished in this country on subjects more or less closely approach- 
ing to that here treated. It may, therefore, be not superfluous 
to say that the author of the following pages believes that he 
has not borrowed any of his views or illustrations from recent 
English writers on Natural Theology. J 

Page. 



INTRODUCTION. 

Chapter I. Object of the Present Treatise - - 13 

II. On Laws of Nature - 17 

III. Mutual Adaptation of Laws of Nature - 20 

IV. Division of the Subject - 23 

BOOK I. Terrestrial Adaptations 25 

Chapter L The Length of the Year - 28 

XI. The Length of the Day ... 37 

III, The Mass of the Earth - 43 

IV. The Magnitude of the Ocean - - 50 
V. The Magnitude of the Atmosphere - 51 

VI. The Constancy and Variety of Climates 52 
VII. The Variety of Organization correspond- 
ing to the Variety of ClXnate - - 57 
VIII. The Constituents of Climate - - 66 
The Laws of Heat with respect to the 
Earth ------ 67 

IX. The Laws of Heat with respect to Water 70 

X. The Laws of Heat with respect to Air - 81 

XL The Laws of Electricity - - - 91 

XII. The La~ws of Magnetism 93 

XIII. The Properties of Light with regard to 

Vegetation 94 

XIV. Sound - 96 

XV. The Atmosphere - 102 

XVI. Light 104 

XVII. The Ether - - - - - 111 

XVIII. Recapitulation - - - - 113 



CONTENTS. 



Page. 

BOOK II. Cosmical Arrangements - - - 119 

Chapter I. The Structure of the Solar System - 121 
II. The Circular Orbits of the Planets round 

the Sun 123 

III. The Stability of the Solar System - 127 

IV. The Sun in the Centre - - - 134 

V. The Satellites 137 

VI. The Stability of the Ocean 140 
VII. The Nebular Hypothesis - - 143 

VIII. The Existence of a Resisting Medium in 

the Solar System - - 150 

IX, Mechanical Laws - - - - 163 
X. The Law of Gravitation - - -166- 

XI. The Laws of Motion - 178 

XIL Friction 183 



BOOK III. Religious Views - - - - 193 
Chapter I. The Creator of the Physical World is the 

Governor of the Moral World - - 195 
II. On the Vastness of the Universe - 205 

III. On Man's Place in the Universe - - 212 

IV. On the Impression produced by the Con* 

templation of Laws of Nature; or, on 
the Conviction that Law implies Mind 223 
V. On Inductive Habits ; or, on the impres- 
sion produced on Men's Minds by dis- 
covering Laws of Nature - 230 
VI. On Deductive Habits ; or, on the Impres- 
sion produced on Men's Minds by tracing 
the Consequences of ascertained Laws 243 
VII. On Final Causes ... 257 

VIII. On the Physical Agency of the Deity - 267 
IX. On the Impression produced by consider- 
ing the Nature and Prospects of Science; 
or, on the Impossibility of the Progress 
of our Knowledge ever enabling us to 
comprehend the Nature of the Deity - 273 



ON 

ASTRONOMY 

AND 

GENERAL PHYSICS. 



INTRODUCTION, 

CHAPTER I. 

Object of the Present Treatise. 

i - The examination of the material world brings 
before us a number of things arid relations of things 
which suggest to most minds the belief of a creating 
and presiding Intelligence. And this impression, 
which arises with the most vague and superficial 
\ consideration of the objects by which we are sur- 
I rounded, is, we conceive, confirmed and expanded 
: by a more exact and profound study of external na- 
ture. Many works have been written at different 
times with the view of showing how our knowledge 
of the elements and their operation, of plants and 
3 animals and their construction, may serve to nourish 
and unfold our idea of a Creator and Governor of 
the world. But though this is the case, a new work 
on the same subject may still have its use. Our views 
of the Creatoi* and Governor of the. world, as col- 
lected from or combined with our view s of the world 
itself, undergo modifications, as we are led by new T 
discoveries, new generalizations, to regard nature in 
a new light. The conceptions concerning the Deity, 
his mode of effecting his purposes, the scheme of his 

B 



INTRODUCTION. 



government, which are suggested by one stage of 
our knowledge of natural objects and operations, 
may become manifestly imperfect or incongruous, 
if adhered to and applied at a later period, when our 
acquaintance with the immediate causes of natural 
events has been greatly extended. On this account 
it maybe interesting, after such an advance, to show 
how the views of the creation, preservation, and go- 
vernment of the universe, which natural science 
opens to us, harmonize with our belief in a Creator, 
Governor, and Preserver of the world. To do this 
with respect to certain departments of Natural Phi- 
losophy is the object of the following pages ; and the 
author will deem himself fortunate, if he succeeds in 
removing any of the difficulties and obscurities which 
prevail in men's minds, from the want of a clear mu- 
tual understanding between the religious and the 
scientific speculator. It is needless here to remark 
the necessarily imperfect and scanty character of' 
Natural Religion ; for most persons will allow that, 
however imperfect may be the knowledge of a 
Supreme Intelligence which w r e gather from the con- 
templation of the natural world, it is still of most es- 
sential use and value. And our purpose on this oc- 
casion is, not to show that Natural Theology is a 
perfect and satisfactory scheme, but to bring up our 
Natural Theology to the point of view in which it 
may be contemplated by the aid of our Natural 
Philosophy. 

Now the peculiar point of view which at present 
belongs to Natural Philosophy, and especially to the 
departments of it which have been most successfully 
cultivated, is, that nature, so far as it is an object of 
scientific research, is a collection of facts governed 
by laics : our knowledge of nature is our knowledge 
of laws ; of laws of operation and connexion, of laws 
of succession and co-existence, among the various 
elements and appearances around us. And it must 
therefore here be our aim to show how this view of 
the universe fails in with our conception of the Di- 



OBJECT. 



15 



vine Author, by whom we hold the universe to be 
made and governed. 

Nature acts by general laws; that is, the occur- 
rences of the world in which we find ourselves, re- 
sult from causes which operate according to fixed 
and constant rules. The succession of days, and 
seasons, and years, is produced by the motions of 
the earth ; and these again are governed by the at- 
traction of the sun, a force which acts with unde- 
viating steadiness and regularity. The changes of 
winds and skies, seemingly so capricious and casual, 
are produced by the operation of the sun's heat upon 
air and moisture, land and sea ; and though in this 
case we cannot trace the particular events to their 
general causes, as we can trace the motions of the 
sun and moon, no philosophical mind will doubt the 
generality and fixity of the rules by which these 
causes act. The variety of the effects takes place, 
because the circumstances in different cases vary ; 
and not because the action of material causes leaves 
anything to chance in the result. And again, though 
the vital movements which go on in the frame of ve- 
getables and animals depend on agencies still less 
known, and probably still more complex, than those 
which rule the weather, each of the powers on 
which such movements depend has its peculiar laws 
of action, and these are as universal and as invaria- 
ble as the law by which a stone falls to the earth 
when not supported. 

The world then is governed by general laws ; and 
! in order to collect from the world itself a judgment 
, concerning the nature and character of its govern- 
| ment, we must consider the import and tendency of 
1 such laws, so far as they come under our knowledge. 

If there be, in the administration of the universe, in- 
5 telligence and benevolence, superintendence and 
5 foresight, grounds for love and hope, such qualities 
may be expected to appear in the constitution and 
1 combination of those fundamental regulations by 
which the course of nature is brought about, and 
made to be what it is. 



16 



INTRODUCTION. 



If a man were, by some extraordinary event, to 
find himself in a remote and unknown country, so 
entirely strange to him that he did not know whether 
there existed in it any law or government at all ; he 
might in no long time ascertain whether the inhabi- 
tants were controlled by any superintending autho- 
rity ; and with a little attention he might determine 
also whether such authority w r ere exercised with a 
prudent care for the happiness and well-being of its 
subjects, or without any regard and fitness to such 
ends ; whether the country were governed by laws 
at all, and whether the laws were good. And ac- 
cording to the laws which he thus found prevailing, 
he would judge of the sagacity, and the purposes of 
the legislative power. 

By observing the laws of the material universe 
and their operation, we may hope, in a somewhat 
similar manner, to be able to direct our judgment 
concerning the government of the universe: con- 
cerning the mode in which the elements are regu- 
lated and controlled, their effects combined and 
balanced. And the general tendency of the results 
thus produced may discover to us something of the 
character of the power which has legislated for the 
material world. 

W e are not to push too far the analogy thus sug- 
gested. There is undoubtedly a wide difference be- 
tween the circumstances of man legislating for man, 
and God legislating for matter. Still we shall, it will 
appear, find abundant reason to admire the wisdom 
and the goodness which have established the Laics of 
Nature, however rigorously we may scrutinize the 
import of this expression, 



17 



CHAPTER II. 

On Laws of Nature. 

When we speak of material nature as being go- 
verned by laws, it is sufficiently evident that we use 
the term in a manner somewhat metaphorical. The 
laws to which man's attention is primarily directed 
are moral \&ws ; rules laid down for his actions; rules 
, , for the conscious actions of a person ; rules which, 
as a matter of possibility, he may obey or may trans- 
gress ; the latter event being combined, not with an 
impossibility, but with a penalty. But the Laws of 
Nature are something different from this ; they are 
rules for that which things are to do and suffer; and 

• this by no consciousness or will of theirs. They are 
rules describing the mode in which things do act ; 

I they are invariably obeyed ; their transgression is 

i not punished, it is excluded. The language of a mo- 

! ral law is, man shall not kill ; the language of a Law 

] of Nature is, a stone will fall to the earth. 

These two kinds of laws direct the actions of per- 

• ■ sons and of things, by the sort of control of which 
. persons and things are respectively susceptible ; so 
, that the metaphor is very simple ; but it is proper for 

us to recollect that it is a metaphor, in order that we 
i j may clearly apprehend what is implied in speaking 
ffi of the Laws of Nature. 

In this phrase are included all properties of the 
portions of the material world ; all modes of action 
and rules of causation, according to which they 
operate on each other. The whole course of the visi- 
ble universe therefore is but the collective result of 
such laws ; its movements are only the aggregate of 
their working. All natural occurrences, in the skies 
and on the earth, in the organic and in the inorganic 
world, are determined by the relations of the ele- 

b 2 



18 



INTRODUCTION. 



ments and the actions of the forces of which the 
rules are thus prescribed. 

The relations and rules by which these occurrences 
are thus determined necessarily depend on measures 
of time and space, motion and force ; on quantities 
which are subject to numerical measurement, and 
capable of being connected by mathematical proper- 
ties. And thus all things are ordered by number and 
weight and measure. "God," as was said .by the 
ancients, "works by geometry:" the legislation of 
the material universe is necessarily delivered in the 
language of mathematics ; the stars in their courses 
are regulated by the properties of conic sections, 
and the winds depend on arithmetical and geometri- 
cal progressions of elasticity and pressure. 

The constitution of the universe, so far as it can 
be clearly apprehended by our intellect, thus assumes 
a shape involving an assemblage of mathematical 
propositions : certain algebraical formulae, and the 
knowledge when and how to apply them, constitute 
the last step of the physical science to which we can 
attain. The labour and the endowments of ages 
have been employed in bringing such science into 
the condition in which it now exists ; and an exact 
and extensive discipline in mathematics, followed by 
a practical and profound study of the researches of 
natural philosophers, can alone put any one in pos- 
session of the knowledge concerning the course of 
the material world, which is at present open to man. 
The general impression, however, which arises from 
the view thus obtained of the universe, the results 
which we collect from the most careful scrutiny of 
its administration, may, we trust, be rendered intelli- 
gible without this technical and laborious study, and 
to do this is our present object. 

It will be our business to show that the laws which 
really prevail in nature are, by their form, that is, 
by the nature of the connexion which they establish 
among the quantities and properties which they re- 
gulate, remarkably adapted to the office which is as- 



ON LAWS OF NATURE. 19 

j i 

signed them; and thus offer evidence of selection, 
design, and goodness, in the power by which they 
were established. But these characters of the legis- 
lation of the universe may also be seen, in many in- 

j stances, in a manner somewhat different from the 
selection of the law. The nature of the connexion re- 
maining the same, the quantities which it regulates 
may also in their magnitude bear marks of selection 
and purpose. For the law may be the same while 
the quantities to which it applies are different. The 
law of the gravity which acts to the earth and to 
Jupiter, is the same; but the intensity of the force at 
the surfaces of the two planets is different. The law 
which regulates the density of the air at any point, 
with reference to the height from the earth's surface, 
would be the same, if the atmosphere were ten times 
as large, or only one-tenth as large as it is ; if the baro- 
meter at the earth's surface stood at three inches only, 
or if it showed a pressure of thirty feet of mercury. 

Now this being understood, the adaptation of a law 
to its purpose, or to other laws, may appear in two 
ways: — either in the form of the law, or in the amount 
of the magnitudes which it regulates, which are 
sometimes called arbitrary magnitudes. 

If the attraction of the sun upon the planets did 
not vary inversely as the square of the distance, the 
form of the law of gravitation would be changed; if 
this attraction w r ere, at the earth's orbit, of a differ- 
ent value from its present one, the arbitrary magni« 
tude would be changed; and it will appear, in a sub- 
sequent part of this work, that either change would, 
so far as we can trace its consequences, be detrimen- 
tal. The form of the law- determines in what manner 
the facts shall take place ; the arbitrary magnitude 
determines how fast, how far, how soon ; the one 
gives a model, the other a measure of the phenome- 
non; the one draws the plan, the other gives the 
scale on which it is to be executed; the one gives the 
rule, the other the rate. If either were wrongly 

! ! taken, the result would be wrong too. 



20 



CHAPTER III. 

Mutual Adaptation in the Laws of Nature. 

To ascertain such laws of nature as we have been 
describing, is the peculiar business of science. It is 
only with regard to a very small portion of the ap- 
pearances of the universe, that science, in any strict 
application of the term, exists. In very few depart- 
ments of research have men been able to trace a 
multitude of known facts to causes which appear to 
be the ultimate material causes, or to discern the 
laws which seem to be the most general laws. Yet, 
in one or two instances, they have done this, or 
something approaching to this ; and most especially 
in the instance of that part of nature, w T hich it is the 
object of this treatise more peculiarly to consider. 

The apparent motions of the sun, moon, and stars 
have been more completely reduced to their causes 
and laws than any other class of phenomena. As- 
tronomy, the science which treats of these, is already 
a wonderful example of the degree of such know- 
ledge which man may attain. The forms of its most 
important laws may be conceived to be certainly 
known ; and hundreds of observers in all parts of the 
world are daily employed in determining, w 7 ith ad- i 
ditiona] accuracy, the arbitrary magnitudes which 
these laws involve. 

The inquiries in which the mutual effects of heat, 
moisture, air, and the like elements are treated of, 
including, among other subjects, all that we know of 
the causes of the weather (meteorology) is a far 
more imperfect science than astronomy. Yet, w r ith 
regard to these agents, a great number of laws of 
nature have been discovered, though, undoubtedly, a 
far greater number remain still unknown. 



ADAPTATION OF LAWS. 



21 



So far, therefore, as our knowledge goes, astro- 
nomy and meteorology are parts of natural philoso- 
phy in which we may study the order of nature with 
such views as we have suggested; in w 7 hich we may 
hope to make out the adaptations and aims which exist 
in the laws of nature ; and thus to obtain some light 
on the tendency of this part of the legislation of the 
universe, and on the character and disposition of the 

• Legislator. 

i : The number and variety of the laws which we 

• find established in the universe is so great, that it 
I would be idle to endeavour to enumerate them. In 

■ ■ their operation they are combined and intermixed in 
i incalculable and endless perplexity, influencing and 
) modifying each other's effects in every direction. If 
! we attempt to comprehend at once the w r hole of this 

i complex system, we find ourselves utterly baffled 
' ' and overwhelmed by its extent and multiplicity. Yet, 
f ' in so far as we consider the bearing of one part upon 
' : another, w r e receive an impression of adaptation, of 
mutual fitness, of conspiring means, of preparation 
! ; and completion, of purpose and provision. This im- 
? '■ pression is suggested by the contemplation of every 

■ part of nature ; but the grounds of it, from the very 
circumstances of the case, cannot be conveyed in a 

■ few words. It can only be fully educed by leading 
: the reader through several views and details, and 
' must grow 7 out of the combined influence of these 

on a sober and reflecting frame of mind. How- 

■ ■ ever strong and solemn be the conviction w T hich may 

be derived from a contemplation of nature, concern- 
ing the existence, the power, the wisdom, the good- 
i ness of our Divine Governor, we cannot expect that 
this conviction, as resulting from the extremely com- 
plex spectacle of the material w 7 orld, should be capa- 
ble of being irresistibly conveyed by a few steps of 
reasoning, like the conclusion of a geometrical pro- 
position, or the result of an arithmetical calculation, 
W e shall, therefore, endeavour to point out cases 
and circumstances in which the different parts of the 



22 



INTRODUCTION. 



universe exhibit this mutual adaptation, and thus to 
bring before the mind of the reader the evidence of 
wisdom and providence, which the external world 
affords. When we have illustrated the correspon- 
dencies which exist in every province of nature, be- 
tween the qualities of brute matter and the constitu- 
tion of living things, between the tendency to de- 
rangement and the conservative influences by which 
such a tendency is counteracted, between the office 
of the minutest speck and of the most general laws ; 
it will, we trust, be difficult or impossible to exclude 
from our conception of this wonderful system, the 
idea of a harmonizing, a preserving, a contriving, 
an intending Mind; of a Wisdom, Power, and Good- 
ness far exceeding the limits of our thoughts* 



23 



CHAPTER IV. 

Division of the Subject. 

In making a survey of the universe, for the pur- 
pose of pointing out such correspondencies and adap- 
tations as we have mentioned, we shall suppose the 
general leading facts of the course of nature to be 
known, and the explanations of their causes now 
generally established among astronomers and natu- 
ral philosophers to be conceded. We shall assume 
therefore that the earth is a solid globe of ascertain- 
ed magnitude, which travels round the sun, in an 
orbit nearly circular, in a period of about three hun- 
dred and sixty five days and a quarter, and in the 
mean time revolves, in an inclined position, upon its 
own axis in about twenty-four hours, thus producing 
the succession of appearances and effects which con- 
stitute seasons and climates, day and night ; — that 
this globe has its surface furrowed and ridged with 
various inequalities, the waters of the ocean occu- 
pying the depressed parts: — that it is surrounded by 
an atmosphere, or spherical covering of air ; and that 
various other physical agents, moisture, electricity, 
magnetism, light, operate at the surface of the earth, 
according to their peculiar laws. This surface is, as 
we know, clothed w r ith a covering of plants, and in- 
habited by the various tribes of animals, with all their 
variety of sensations, wants, and enjoyments. The 
relations and connexions of the larger portions of 
the world, the sun, the planets, and the stars, the cos- 
mical arrangements of the system, as they are some- 
times called, determine the course of events among 
these bodies ; and the more remarkable features of 
these arrangements are therefore some of the sub- 
jects for our consideration. These cosmical arrange- 



24 INTRODUCTION. 

ments, in their consequences, affect also the physical 
agencies which are at work at the surface of the 
earth, and hence come in contact with terrestrial 
occurrences. They thus influence the functions of 
plants and animals. The circumstances in the cos- 
mical system of the universe, and in the organic sys- 
tem of the earth, which have thus a bearing on each 
other, form another of the subjects of which we shall 
treat. The former class of considerations attends 
principally to the stability and other apparent perfec- 
tions of the solar system ; the latter to the well being 
of the system of organic life by which the earth is 
occupied. The two portions of the subject may be 
treated as Cosmical Arrangements and Terrestrial 
Adaptations. 

We shall begin with the latter class of adaptations, 
because in treating of these the facts are more fami- 
liar and tangible, and the reasonings less abstract and 
technical, than in the other division of the subject. 
Moreover, in this case men have no difficulty in re- 
cognizing as desirable the end which is answered by 
such adaptations, and they therefore the more readily 
consider it as an end. The nourishment, the enjoy- 
ment, the diffusion of living things, are willingly ac- 
knowledged to be a suitable object for contrivance ; 
the simplicity, the permanence, of an inert mechani- 
cal combination might not so readily be allowed to 
be a manifestly worthy aim of a Creating Wisdom. 
The former branch of our argument may therefore 
be best suited to introduce to us the Deity as the in- 
stitutor of Laws of Nature, though the latter may 
afterwards give us a wider view and a clearer in- 
sight into one province of his legislation. 



BOOK L 



TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS, 



We proceed in this book to point out relations 
which subsist between the laws of the inorganic 
world, that is, the general facts of astronomy and 
meteorology ; and the laws which prevail in the or- 
ganic world, the properties of plants and animals, 

With regard to the first kind of laws, they are in 
the highest degree various and unlike each other. 

. The intensity and activity of natural influences fol- 
low in different cases the most different rules. In 
some instances they are periodical, increasing and 
diminishing alternately, in a perpetual succession of 

; equal intervals of time. This is the case w T ith the 
heat at the earth's surface, which has a period of a 

" ' year ; with the light, which has a period of a day. 

J Other qualities are constant, thus the force of gravity 
\ at the same place is always the same. In some 
cases, a very simple cause produces very compli- 

' : cated effects ; thus the globular form of the earth, 

' and the inclination of its axis during its annual mo- 
tion, give rise to all the variety of climates. In 
other cases a very complex and variable system of 
causes produces effects comparatively steady and 
uniform; thus solar and terrestrial heat, air, moisture, 
and probably many other apparently conflicting 
agents, join to produce our weather, w T hich never 
deviates very far from a certain average standard. 

Now a general fact, w r hich we shall endeavour to 
exemplify in the following chapters, is this : — That 

c 



26 



TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS. 



those properties of plants and animals which have 
reference to agencies of a periodical character, have 
also by their nature a periodical mode of working ; 
while those properties which refer to agencies of 
constant intensity, are adjusted to this constant in- 
tensity: and again, there are peculiarities in the na- 
ture of organized beings which have reference to a 
variety in the conditions of the external world, as, 
for instance, the difference of the organized popula- 
tion of different regions : and there are other pecu- 
liarities which have a reference to the constancy of 
the average of such conditions, and the limited range 
of the deviations from that average ; as for example, 
that constitution by which each plant and animal is 
fitted to exist and prosper in its usual place in the 
world. 

And not only is there this general agreement be- 
tween the nature of the laws which govern the or- 
ganic and inorganic world, but also there is a coin- 
cidence between the arbitrary magnitudes which 
such laws involve on the one hand and on the other. 
Plants and animals have, in their construction, cer- 
tain periodical functions, which have a reference to 
alternations of heat and cold ; the length of the pe- 
riod which belongs to these functions by their con- 
struction, appears to be that of the period which 
belongs to the actual alternations of heat and cold, 
namely, a year. Plants and animals have again in 
their construction certain other periodical functions, 
which have a reference to alternations of light and 
darkness ; the length of the period of such functions 
appears to coincide with the natural day. In like 
manner the other arbitrary magnitudes which enter 
into the laws of gravity, of the effects of air and 
moisture, and of other causes of permanence, and of 
change, by which the influences of the elements ope- 
rate, are the same arbitrary magnitudes to which 
the members of the organic world are adapted by 
the various peculiarities of their construction. 

The illustration of this view will be pursued in 



TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS. 



the succeeding chapters ; and when the coincidence 
here spoken of is distinctly brought before the reader, 
it will, we trust, be found to convey the conviction 
of a wise and benevolent design, which has been ex- 
ercised in producing such an agreement between 
the internal constitution and the external circum- 
stances of organized beings. We shall adduce cases 
where there is an apparent relation between the 
course of operation of the elements and the course 
of vital functions; between some fixed measure of 
time or space, traced in the lifeless and in the living 
world; where creatures are constructed on a certain 
plan, or a certain scale, and this plan or this scale is 
exactly the single one which is suited to their place 
on the earth ; where it was necessary for the Crea- 
tor (if we may use such a mode of speaking) to take 
account of the weight of the earth, or the density of 
the air, or the measure of the ocean, and where 
these quantities are rightly taken account of in the 
arrangements of creation. In such cases we con- 
ceive that we trace a Creator, who, in producing 
one part of his work, was not forgetful or careless of 
another part ; who did not cast his living creatures 
into the world to prosper or perish as they might 
find it suited to them or not; but fitted together, with 
the nicest skill, the woild and the constitution which 
he gave to its inhabitants ; so fashioning it and them, 
that light and darkness, sun and air, moist and dry, 
should become their ministers and benefactors, the 
unwearied and unfailing causes of their well being. 

We have spoken of the mutual adaptation of the 
organic and the inorganic world. If we were to 
conceive the contrivance of the world as taking 
place in an order of time in the contriving mind, we 
might also have to conceive this adaptation as taking 
place in one of two ways : we might either suppose 
the laws of inert nature to be accommodated to the 
foreseen wants of living things, or the organization 
of life to be accommodated to the previously estab- 
lished laws of nature. But we are not forced upon 



28 



TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS. 



any such mode of conception, or upon any decision 
between such suppositions : since, for the purpose of 
our argument, the consequence of either view is the 
same. There is an adaptation somewhere or other, 
on either supposition. There is account taken of 
one part of the system in framing the other : and 
the mind which took such account can be no other 
than that of the Intelligent Author of the universe. 
When indeed we come to see the vast number, the 
variety, the extent, the interweaving, the reconciling 
of such adaptations, we shall readily allow, that all 
things are so moulded upon and locked into each 
other, connected by such subtilty and profundity of 
design, that we may well abandon the idle attempt 
to trace the order of thought in the mind of the Su- 
preme Ordainer. 



CHAPTER L 

77ie Length of th e Year. 

A year is the most important and obvious of the 
periods which occur in the organic, and especially 
in the vegetable world. In this interval of time the 
cycle of most of the external influences which ope- 
rate upon plants is completed. There is also in 
plants a cycle of internal functions, corresponding to 
this succession of external causes. The length of 
either of these periods might have been different 
from what it is, according to any grounds of neces- 
sity which we can perceive^ But a certain length is 
selected in both instances, and in both instances the 
same. The length of the year is so determined as 
to be adapted to the constitution of most vegetables; 
or the construction of vegetables is so adjusted as to 
be suited to the length which the year really has, 
and unsuited to a duration longer or shorter by any 



LEiVGTH OF THE YEAR. 



29 



considerable portion. The vegetable clock-work is 
so set as to go for a year. 

The length of the year or interval of recurrence 
of the seasons is determined by the time which the 
earth employs in performing its revolution round the 
sun : and we can very easily conceive the solar sys- 
tem so adjusted that the year should be longer or 
shorter than it actually is. We can imagine the 
earth to revolve round the sun at a distance greater 
or less than that which it at present has, all the 
forces of the system remaining unaltered. If the 
earth were removed towards the centre by about 
one-eighth of its distance, the year would be di- 
minished by about a month ; and in the same man- 
ner it would be increased by a month on increasing 
the distance by one-eighth. We can suppose the 
earth at a distance of eighty-four or a hundred and 
eight millions of miles, just as easily as at its present 
distance of ninety-six millions: we can suppose the 
earth with its present stock of animals and vegetables 
placed where Mars or where Venus is, and revolving 
in an orbit like one of theirs: on the former supposi- 
tion our year would become twenty-three, on the 
latter seven of our present months. Or we can con- 
ceive the present distances of the parts of the system 
to continue what they are, and the size, or the den- 
sity of the central mass, the sun, to be increased or 
diminished in any proportion ; and in this way the 
time of the earth's revolution might have been in- 
creased or diminished in any degree ; a greater ve- 
locity, and. consequently a diminished period, being 
requisite in order to balance an augmented central 
attraction. In any of these ways the length of the 
earth's natural year might have been different from 
what it now is : in the last way without any neces- 
sary alteration, so far as we can see, of tempera- 
ture. 

Now, if any change of this kind were to take 
place, the working of the botanical world would be 
thrown into utter disorder, the functions of plants 
c2 



30 TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS* 

would be entirely deranged, and the whole vegetable 
kingdom involved in instant decay and rapid extinc- 
tion. 

That this would be the case, may be collected 
from innumerable indications. Most of our fruit 
trees, for example, require the year to be of its pre- 
sent length. If the summer and the autumn were 
much shorter, the fruit could not ripen; if these sea- 
sons were much longer, the tree would put forth a 
fresh suit of blossoms, to be cut down by the winter. 
Or if the year were twice its present length, a se- 
cond crop of fruit would probably not be matured, 
for want, among other things, of an intermediate I 
season of rest and consolidation, such as the winter 
is. Our forest trees in like manner appear to need 
all the seasons of our present year for their perfec- 
tion; the spring, summer, and autumn, for the de- 
velopement of their leaves and consequent formation 
of their proper juice, and of wood from this ; and the 
winter for the hardening and solidifying the substance 
thus formed. 

Most plants, indeed, have some peculiar function 
adapted to each period of the year, that is of the 
now existing year. The sap ascends with extraor- 
dinary copiousness at two seasons, in the spring and 
in the autumn, especially the former. The opening 
of the leaves and the opening of the flowers of the 
same plants are so constant to their times, (their 
appointed times, as we are naturally led to call 
them,) that such occurrences might be taken as indi- j 
cations of the times of the year. It has been pro- 
posed in this way to select a series of botanical facts u 
which should form a calendar ; and this has been 
termed a calendar of Flora. Thus, if we consider 
the time of putting forth leaves,* the honeysuckle 
rotrudes them in the month of January ; the goose- 
erry, currant, and elder in the end of February, or 
beginning of March ; the willow, elm, and lime-tree 

* Loudon, Encyclopaedia of Gardening, 848. 



LENGTH OF THE YEAR. 31 

in April; the oak and ash, which are always the 
latest among trees, in the beginning or towards the 
middle of May. In the same manner the flowering 
has its regular time : the mezereon and snowdrop 
push forth their flowers in February; the primrose 
in the month of March ; the cowslip in April ; the 
great mass of plants in May and June; many in 
July, August, and September; some, not till the 
month of October, as the meadow saffron; and some 
not till the approach and arrival of winter, as the 
laurustinus and arbutus. 

The fact which we have here to notice, is the re- 
currence of these stages in the developement of 
plants, at intervals precisely or very nearly of twelve 
months. Undoubtedly, this result is in part occa- 
sioned by the action of external stimulants upon the 
plant, especially heat, and by the recurrence of the 
intensity of such agents. Accordingly, there are 
slight differences in the times of such occurrences, 
according to the backwardness or forwardness of 
the season, and according as the climate is genial or 
otherwise. Gardeners use artifices which will, to a 
certain extent, accelerate or retard the time of de- 
velopement of a plant. But there are various cir- 
cumstances which show that this recurrence of the 
same events and equal intervals is not entirely owing 
to external causes, and that it depends also upon 
something in the internal structure of vegetables. 
Alpine plants do not wait for the stimulus of the 
, j sun's heat, but exert such a struggle to blossom, that 
, I their flowers are seen among the yet unmelted snow. 
And this is still more remarkable in the naturaliza- 
tion of plants from one hemisphere to the other. 

• I When we transplant our fruit trees to the temperate 

• regions south of the equator, they continue for some 
years to flourish at the period which corresponds to 
our spring. The reverse of this obtains, with cer- 

i tain trees of the southern hemisphere. Plants from 
the Cape of Good Hope, and from Australia, coun- 
tries whose summer is simultaneous with our winter, 



I 



32 



TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS. 



exhibit their flowers in the coldest part of the year, 
as the heaths. 

This view of the subject agrees with that main- 
tained by the best botanical writers. Thus Decan- 
dolle observes that after making allowance for all 
meteorological causes, which determine the epoch 
of flowering, we must reckon as another cause the 
peculiar nature of each species. The flowering once 
determined, appears to be subject to a law of 
periodicity and habit.* 

It appears then that the functions of plants have 
by their nature a periodical character; and the 
length of the period thus belonging to vegetables is 
a result of their organization. Warmth and light, 
soil and moisture, may in some degree modify, and 
hasten or retard the stages of this period ; but when 
the constraint is removed the natural period is again 
resumed. Such stimulants as we have mentioned 
are not the causes of this periodicity. They do not 
produce the varied functions of the plant, and could 
not occasion their performance at regular intervals, 
except the plant possessed a suitable construction. 
They could not alter the length of the cycle of vege- 
table functions, except within certain very narrow 
limits. The processes of the rising of the sap, of the 
formation of proper juices, of the unfolding of leaves, 
the opening of flowers, the fecundation of the fruit, 
the ripening of the seed, its proper deposition in order 
for the reproductiorj of a new plant ; — all these ope- 
rations require a certain portion of time, and could 
not be compressed into a space less than a year, or 
at least could not be abbreviated in any very great, 
degree. And on the other hand, if the winter were 
greatly longer than it now is, many seeds would not 
germinate at the return of spring. Seeds which 
have been kept too long require stimulants to make 
them fertile. 

If therefore the duration of the seasons were much 
* Dec. Phys. vol. ii. 478. 



LENGTH OF THE YEAR. 



33 



to change, the processes of vegetable life would be 
interrupted, deranged, distempered. What, for in- 
stance, would become of our calendar of Flora, if 
the year were lengthened or shortened by six months'? 
Some of the dates would never arrive in the one 
case, and the vegetable processes which mark them 
would be superseded ; some seasons would be with- 
out dates in the other case, and these periods would 
be employed in a way harmful to the plants, and no 
doubt speedily destructive. We should have not 
only a year of confusion, but, if it were repeated and 
continued, a year of death. 

But in the existing state of things, the duration of 
the earth's revolution round the sun, and the dura- 
tion of the revolution of the vegetable functions of 
most plants are equal. These two periods are ad- 
justed to each other. The stimulants which the ele- 
ments apply come at such intervals and continue for 
such times, that the plant is supported in health and 
vigour, and enabled to reproduce its kind. Just such 
a portion of time is measured out for the vegetable 
powers to execute their task, as enables them to do 
so in the best manner. 

Now such an adjustment must surely be accepted 
as a proof of design, exercised in the formation of 
the world. Why should the solar year be so long 
and no longer] or, this being of such a length, why 
should the vegetable cycle be exactly of the same 
length? Can this be chance? And this occurs, it 
is to be observed, not in one, or in a few species of 
plants, but in thousands. Take a small portion only 
of known species, as the most obviously endowed 
with this adjustment, and say ten thousand. How 
should all these organized bodies be constructed for 
the same period of a year? How should all these 
machines be wound up so as to go for the same time? 
Even allowing that they could bear a year of a month 
longer or shorter, how do they all come within such 
limits ? No chance could produce such a result. 
And if not by chance, how otherwise could such a 



34 



TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS. 



coincidence occur, than by an intentional adjustment 
of these two things to one another ? by a selection 
of such an organization in plants, as would fit them 
to the earth on which they were to grow ; by an 
adaptation of construction to conditions ; of the scale 
of the construction to the scale of the conditions. 

It cannot be accepted as an explanation of this 
fact in the economy of plants, that it is necessary to 
their existence ; that no plants could possibly have 
subsisted, and come down to us, except those which 
were thus suited to their place on earth. This is true; 
but this does not at all remove the necessity of re- 
curring to design as the origin of the construction by 
which the existence and continuance of plants is 
made possible. A watch could not go, except there 
were the most exact adjustment in the forms and 
positions of its wheels ; yet no one would accept it 
as an explanation of the origin of such forms and 
positions, that the watch would not go if these were 
other than they are. If the objector were to suppose 
that plants were originally fitted to years of various 
lengths, and that such only have survived to the pre- 
sent time, as had a cycle of a length equal to our 
present year, or one which could be accommodated 
to it ; we should reply, that the assumption is too gra- 
tuitous and extravagant to require much considera- 
tion ; but that, moreover, it does not remove the dif- 
ficulty. How came the functions of plants to be 
periodical at all ? Here is, in the first instance, an 
agreement in the form of the laws that prevail in 
the organic and in the inorganic world, which ap- 
pears to us a clear evidence of design in their Au- 
thor. And the same kind of reply might be made to 
any similar objection to our argument. Any suppo- 
sition that the universe has gradually approximated 
to that state of harmony among the operations of its 
different parts, of which we have one instance in the 
coincidence now under consideration, would make it 
necessary for the objector to assume a previous state 
of things preparatory to this perfect correspondence. 



LENGTH OF THE YEAR. 



35 



And in this preparatory condition we should still be 
able to trace the rudiments of that harmony, for 
which it was proposed to account : so that even the 
most unbounded license of hypothesis would not en- 
able the opponent to obliterate the traces of an in- 
tentional adaptation of one part of nature to another. 

Nor would it at all affect the argument, if these 
periodical occurrences could be traced to some 
proximate cause : if for instance it could be shown, 
that the budding or flowering of plants is brought 
about at particular intervals, by the nutriment accu- 
mulated in their vessels during the preceding months. 
For the question would still remain, how their func- 
tions were so adjusted, that the accumulation of the 
nutriment necessary for budding and flowering, to- 
gether with the operation itself, comes to occupy ex- 
actly a year, instead of a month only, or ten years. 
There must be in their structure some reference to 
time : how did such a reference occur? how was it 
determined to the particular time of the earth's revo- 
lution round the sun? This could be no otherwise, 
as we conceive, than by design and appointment. 

We are left therefore with this manifest adjust- 
ment before us, of two parts of the universe, at first 
sight so remote; the dimensions of the solar system 
and the powers of vegetable life. These two things 
are so related, that one has been made to fit the 
other. The relation is as clear as that of a watch to 
a sundial. If a person were to compare the watch 
with the dial, hour after hour, and day after day, it 
would be impossible for him not to believe that the 
watch had been contrived to accommodate itself to 
the solar day. We have at least ten thousand kinds 
of vegetable watches of the most various forms, 
which are all accommodated to the solar year ; and 
the evidence of contrivance seems to be no more 
capable of being eluded in this case than in the other. 

The same kind of argument might be applied to 
the animal creation. The pairing, nesting, hatching, 
fledging, and flight of birds, for instance, occupy 



36 



TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS. 



each its peculiar time of the year; and, together 
with a proper period of rest, fill up the twelve months. 
The transformations of most insects have a similar 
reference to the seasons, their progress and duration. 
" In every species," (except man,) says a writer* on 
animals, " there is a peculiar period of the year in 
which the reproductive system exercises its ener- 
gies. And the season of love and the period of ges- 
tation are so arranged that the young ones are pro- 
duced at the time wherein the conditions of tempera- 
ture are most suited to the commencement of life." 
It is not our business here to consider the details of 
such provisions, beautiful and striking as they are. 
But the prevalence of the great law of periodicity 
in the vital functions of organized beings will be al- 
lowed to have a claim to be considered in its refer- 
ence to astronomy, when it is seen that their periodi- 
cal constitution derives its use from the periodical 
nature of the motions of the planets round the sun; 
and that the duration of such cycles in the existence 
of plants and animals has a reference to the arbi- 
trary elements of the solar system: a reference 
which, we maintain, is inexplicable and unintelligi- 
ble, except by admitting into our conceptions ; an In- 
telligent Author, alike of the organic and inorganic 
universe. 



* Fleming, Zool. i. 400, 



37 



CHAPTER II. 
The Length of the Day. 

We shall now consider another astronomical ele- 
ment, the time of the revolution of the earth on its 
axis; and we shall find here also that the structure of 
organized bodies are suited to this element; — that 
the cosmical and physiological arrangements are 
adapted to each other. 

We can very easily conceive the earth to revolve 
on her axis faster or slower than she does, and thus 
the days to be longer or shorter than they are, with- 
out supposing any other change to take place. There 
is no apparent reason why this globe should turn on 
its axis just three hundred and sixty-six times while 
it describes its orbit round the sun. The revolutions 
of the other planets, so far as we know them, do not 
appear to follow any rule by which they are con- 
nected with the distance from the sun. Mercury, 
Venus, and Mars have days nearly the length of 
ours. Jupiter and Saturn revolve in about ten hours 
each. For any thing we can discover, the earth 
might have revolved in this or any other smaller 
period ; or we might have had, without mechanical 
inconvenience, much longer days than we have. 

But the terrestrial day, and consequently the length 
of the cycle of light and darkness, being what it is, 
we find various parts of the constitution both of ani- 
mals and vegetables, which have a periodical cha- 
racter in their functions, corresponding to the diurnal 
succession of external conditions ; and we find that 
the length of the period, as it exists in their constitu- 
tion, coincides with the length of the natural day. 

The alternation of processes which takes place in 
plants by day and by night is less obvious, and less 

D 



38 



TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS. 



obviously essential to their well-being, than the an- 
nual series of changes. But there are abundance of 
facts which serve to show that such an alternation is 
part of the vegetable economy. 

In the same manner in which Linnaeus proposed a 
Calendar of Flora, he also proposed a Dial of Flora, 
or Flower-Clock; and this was to consist, as will 
readily be supposed, of plants, which mark certain 
hours of the day, by opening and shutting their flow- 
ers. Thus the day-lily (hemerocallis fulva) opens at 
five in the morning ; the leontodon taraxacum, or 
common dandelion, at five or six ; the hieracium lati- 
folium (hawkweed), at seven; the hieracium pilosella, 
at eight ; the calendula arvensis, or marigold, at nine; 
the mesembryanthemum neapolitanum, at ten or 
eleven; and the closing of these and other flowers 
in the latter part of the day offers a similar system 
of hour marks. 

Some of these plants are thus expanded in conse- 
quence of the stimulating action of the light and 
heat of the day, as appears by their changing their 
time, when these influences are changed ; but others 
appear to be constant to the same hours, and inde- 
pendent of the impulse of such external circum- 
stances. Other flowers by their opening and shutting 
prognosticate the weather. Plants of the latter kind 
are called by Linnaeus meteoric flowers, as being re- 
gulated by atmospheric causes : those which change 
their hour of opening and shutting with the length of 
the day, he terms tropical; and the hours which they 
measure are, he observes, like Turkish hours, of va- 
rying length at different seasons. But there are other 
plants which he terms equinoctial; their vegetable 
days, like the days of the equator, being always of 
equal length ; and these open, and generally close, 
at a fixed and positive hour of the day. Such plants 
clearly prove that the periodical character, and the 
period of the motions above described, do not depend 
altogether on external circumstances. 

Some curious experiments on this subject were 



LENGTH OF THE YEAR. 



39 



made by Decandolle. He kept certain plants in two 
cellars, one warmed by a stove and dark, the other 
lighted by lamps. On some of the plants the artifi- 
cial light appeared to have no influence, {convolvulus 
arvensis, convolvulus cneorum, silene fruticosd) and 
they still followed the clock hours in their opening 
and closing. The night-blowing plants appeared 
somewhat disturbed, both by perpetual light and per- 
petual darkness. In either condition they accelerated 
their going so much, that in three days they had 
gained half a day, and thus exchanged night for day 
as their time of opening. Other flowers went slower 
in the artificial light {convolvulus purpureus.) In like 
manner those plants which fold and unfold their 
leaves were variously affected by this mode of treat- 
ment. The oxalis stricta and oxalis incarnata kept 
their habits, without regarding either artificial light 
or heat. The mimosa leucocephala folded and unfold- 
ed at the usual times, w r hether in light or in dark- 
ness, but the folding up was not so complete as in 
the open air. The mimosa pudica (sensitive plant,) 
kept in darkness during the day time, and illumi- 
nated during the night, had in three days accommo- 
dated herself to the artificial state, opening in the 
evening, and closing in the morning ; restored to the 
open air, she recovered her usual habits. 

Tropical plants in general, as is remarked by our 
gardeners, suffer from the length of our summer 
daylight; and it has been found necessary to shade 
them during a certain part of the day. 

It is clear from these facts, that there is a diurnal 
period belonging to the constitution of vegetables; 
though the succession of functions depends in part 
on external stimulants, as light and heat, their peri- 
odical character is a result of the structure of the 
' plant; and this structure is such, that the length of 
the period, under the common influences to which 
plants are exposed, coincides with the astronomical 
day. The power of accommodation which vegeta- 
bles possess in this respect, is far from being such as 



40 



TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS, 



either to leave the existence of this periodical con- 
stitution doubtful, or to entitle us to suppose that the 
day might be considerably lengthened or shortened 
without injury to the vegetable kingdom. 

Here then we have an adaptation between the 
structure of plants, and the periodical order of light 
and darkness which arises from the earth's rotation; 
and the arbitrary quantity, the length of the cycle 
of the physiological and of the astronomical fact, is 
the same. Can this have occurred any otherwise 
than by an intentional adjustment? 

Any supposition that the astronomical cycle has 
occasioned the physiological one, that the structure 
of plants has been brought to be what it is by the 
action of external causes* or that such plants as 
could not accommodate themselves to the existing 
day have perished, would be not only an arbitrary 
and baseless assumption, but moreover useless for 
the purposes of explanation which it professes, as we 
have noticed of a similar supposition with respect to 
the annual cycle. How came plants to have pe- 
riodicity at all in those functions which have a rela- 
tion to light and darkness? This part of their 
constitution was suited to organized things which 
were to flourish on the earth, and it is accordingly 
bestowed on them; it was necessary for this end that 
the period should be of a certain length; it is of that 
length and no other. Surely this looks like inten- 
tional provision. 

Animals also have a period in their functions and 
habits; as in the habits of waking, sleeping, eating, 
&c. and their well-being appears to depend on the 
coincidence of this period with the length of the 
natural day. We see that in the day, as it now is* 
all animals find seasons for taking food and repose, 
which agree perfectly with their health and comfort. 
Some animals feed during the day, as nearly all the 
ruminating animals and land birds ; others feed only 
in the twilight, as bats and owls* and are called 
crepuscular; while many beasts of prey* aquatic 



LENGTH OF THE DAY. 



41 



birds, and others, take their food during the night. 
Those animals which are nocturnal feeders are diur- 
nal sleepers, while those which are crepuscular, 
sleep partly in the night and partly in the day; but 
in all, the complete period of these functions is 
twenty-four" hours. Man, in like manner, in all na- 
tions and ages, takes his principal rest once in 
twenty-four hours; and the regularity of this prac- 
tice seems most suitable to his health, though the 
duration of the time allotted to repose is extremely 
different in different cases. So far as we can judge, 
this period is of a length beneficial to the human 
frame, independently of the effect of external agents. 
In the voyages recently made into high northern la- 
titudes, where the sun did not rise for three months, 
the crews of the ships were made to adhere, with 
the utmost punctuality, to the habit of retiring to 
rest at nine, and rising a quarter before six; and 
they enjoyed, under circumstances apparently the 
most trying, a state of salubrity quite remarkable. 
This shows, that according to the common constitu- 
tion of such men, the cycle of twenty-four hours is 
very commodious, though not imposed on them by 
external circumstances. , 

The hours of food and repose are capable of such 
wide modifications in animals, and above all in man, 
by the influence of external stimulants and internal 
emotions, that it is not easy to distinguish what por- 
tion of the tendency to such alternations depends on 
original constitution. Yet no one can doubt that the 
inclination to food and sleep is periodical, or can 
maintain, with any plausibility, that the period may 
be lengthened or shortened without limit. We may 
be tolerably certain that a constantly recurring pe- 
riod of forty-eight hours would be too long for one 
day of employment and one period of sleep, with 
our present faculties; and all, whose bodies and 
minds are tolerably active, will probably agree that, 
independently of habit, a perpetual alternation of 
eight hours up and four in bed would employ the 

d2 



42 



TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS. 



human powers less advantageously and agreeably 
than an alternation of sixteen and eight. A crea- 
ture which could employ the full energies of his body 
and mind uninterruptedly for nine months, and then 
take a single sleep of three months, would not be a 
man. 

When, therefore, we have subtracted from the 
daily cycle of the employments of men and animals, 
that which is to be set down to the account of habits 
acquired, and that which is occasioned by extraneous 
causes, there still remains a periodical character ; 
and a period of a certain length, which coincides 
with, or at any rate easily accommodates itself to, 
the duration of the earth's revolution- The physio- 
logical analysis of this part of our constitution is not 
necessary for our purpose. The succession of exer- 
tion and repose in the muscular system, of excited 
and dormant sensibility in the nervous, appear to be 
fundamentally connected with the muscular and ner- 
vous powers, whatever the nature of these may be. 
The necessity of these alternations is one of the 
measures of the intensity of those vital energies: 
and it w T ould seem that we cannot, without assuming 
the human powers to be altered, suppose the inter- 
vals of tranquillity which they require to be much 
changed. This view agrees with the opinion of some 
of the most eminent physiologists. Thus Cahanis* 
notices the periodical and isochronous character of 
the desire of sleep, as well as of other appetites. 
He states also that sleep is more easy and more sa- 
lutary, in proportion as we go to rest and rise every 
day at the same hours; and observes that this pe- 
riodicity seems to have a reference to the motions of 
the solar system. 

Now how should such a reference be at first 
established in the constitution of man, animals, and 
plants, and transmitted from one generation of them 
to another? If we suppose a wise and benevolent 

* Rapports du Physique et da Moral de PHomme,!!. 371. 



MASS OF THE EARTH. 43 

Creator, by whom all the parts of nature were fitted 
to their uses and to each other, this is what we might 
expect and can understand. On any other supposi- 
tion such a fact appears altogether incredible and 
inconceivable. 



CHAPTER III. 

The Mass of the Earth. 

We shall now consider the adaptation which may, 
as we conceive, be traced in the amount of some of 
the quantities w T hich determine the course of events 
in the organic world; and especially in the amount 
of the forces which are in action. The life of vege- 
tables and animals implies a constant motion of their 
fluid parts, and this motion must be produced by 
forces which urge or draw the particles of the fluids, 
The positions of the parts of vegetables are also the 
result of the flexibility and elasticity of their sub- 
stance; the voluntary motions of animals are pro- 
duced by the tension of the muscles. But in all those 
cases, the effect really produced depends upon the 
force of gravity also; and in order that the motions 
and positions may be such as answer their purpose, 
the forces which produce them must have a due pro- 
portion to the force of gravity. In human works, if, 
for instance, we have a fluid to raise, or a weight to 
move, some calculation is requisite, in order to de- 
termine the power which we must use, relatively to 
the work which is to be done: we have a mechani- 
' cal problem to solve, in order that we may adjust the 
one to the other. And the same adjustment, the 
same result of a comparison of quantities, manifests 
itself in the relation which the forces of the organic 
world bear to the force of gravity. 



I 



44 



TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS. 



The force of gravity might, so far as we can judge, 
have been different from what it now is. It depends 
upon the mass of the earth ; and this mass is one of 
the elements of the solar system, which is not deter- 
mined by any cosmical necessity of which we are 
aware. The masses of the several planets are very 
different, and do not appear to follow any determi- 
nate rule, except that upon the whole those nearer 
to the sun appear to be smaller, and those nearer the 
outskirts of the system to be larger. We cannot see 
any thing which would have prevented either the 
size or the density of the earth from being different, 
to a very great extent, from what they are. 

Now, it will be very obvious that if the intensity 
of gravity were to be much increased, or much di- 
minished, if every object were to become twice as 
heavy or only half as heavy as it now is, all the 
forces, both of involuntary and voluntary motion 
which produce the present orderly and suitable re- 
sults by being properly proportioned to the resistance 
which they experience, would be thrown off their 
balance ; they would produce motions too quick or 
too slow, wrong positions, jerks and stops, instead of 
steady, well conducted movements. The universe 
would be like a machine ill regulated; every thing 
would go wrong; repeated collisions and a rapid 
disorganization must be the consequence. We will, 
however, attempt to illustrate one or two of the cases 
in which this would take place, by pointing out 
forces which act in the organic world, and which 
are adjusted to the force of gravity. 

1. The first instance we shall take, is the force 
manifested by the ascent of the sap in vegetables. It 
appears by a multitude of indisputable experiments, 
(among the rest, those of Hales, Mirbel, and Dutro- 
chet,) that all plants imbibe moisture by their roots, 
and pump it up, by some internal force, into every 
part of their frame, distributing it into every leaf. It 
will be easily conceived that this operation must re- 
quire a very considerable mechanical force; for the 



MASS OF THE EARTH. 45 

fluid must be sustained as if it were a single column 
reaching to the top of the tree. The division into 
minute parts and distribution through small vessels 
does not at all diminish the total force requisite to 
raise it. If, for instance, the tree be thirty-three feet 
high, the pressure must be fifteen pounds upon every 
square inch in the section of the vessels of the bot- 
tom in order merely to support the sap. And it is 
not only supported, but propelled upwards with great 
force, so as to supply the constant evaporation of the 
leaves. The pumping power of the tree must, there- 
fore, be very considerable. 

That this power is great, has been confirmed by 
various curious experiments, especially by those of 
Hales. He measured the force with w 7 hich the stems 
and branches of trees draw the fluid from below, and 
push it upwards. He found, for instance, that a vine 
in the bleeding season could push up its sap in a glass 
tube to the height of twenty-one feet above the stump 
of an amputated branch. 

The force which produces this effect is part of the 
economy of the vegetable world ; and it is clear that 
the due operation of the force depends upon its being 
rightly proportioned to the force of gravity. The 
weight of the fluid must be counterbalanced, and an 
excess of force must exist to produce the motion up- 
wards. In the common course of vegetable life, the 
rate of ascent of the sap is regulated, on the one 
hand, by the upward pressure of the vegetable 
power, and on the other, by the amount of the gra- 
vity of the fluid, along with the other resistances, 
which are to be overcome. If, therefore, we sup- 
pose gravity to increase, the rapidity of this vege- 
table circulation will diminish, and the rate at which 
this function proceeds, will not correspond either to 
the course of the seasons, or the other physiological 
processes with which this has to co-operate. We 
might easily conceive such an increase of gravity as 
would stop the vital movements of the plant in a 
very short time. In like manner? a diminution of the 



46 



TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS. 



gravity of the vegetable juices would accelerate the 
rising of the sap, and would, probably, hurry and 
overload the leaves and other organs, so as to inter- 
fere with their due operation. Some injurious change, 
at least, would take place. 

Here, then, we have the forces of the minutest 
parts of vegetables adjusted to the magnitude of the 
whole mass of the earth on which they exist. There 
is no apparent connexion between the quantity of 
matter of the earth, and the force of imbibition of 
the roots of a vine, or the force of propulsion of the 
vessels of its branches. Yet, these things have such 
a proportion as the well being of the vine requires. 
How is this to be accounted for, but by supposing 
that the circumstances under which the vine was to 
grow, were attended to in devising its structure ? 

We have not here pretended to decide whether 
this force of propulsion of vegetables is mechanical 
or not, because the argument is the same for our 
purpose on either supposition. Some very curious 
experiments have recently been made, (by M. Du- 
trochet,) which are supposed to show that the force 
is mechanical; that when two different fluids are se- 
parated by a thin membrane, a force which M. Du- 
trochet calls endosmose urges one fluid through the 
membrane : and that the roots of plants are provided 
with small vesicles which act the part of such a 
membrane. M. Poisson has further attempted to 
show that this force of endosmose may be considered 
as a particular modification of capillary action. If 
these views be true, we have here two mechanical 
forces, capillary action and gravity, which are ad- 
justed to each other in the manner precisely suited 
to the welfare of vegetables. 

2. As another instance of adaptation between the 
force of gravity and forces which exist in the veget- 
able world, we may take the positions of flowers. 
Some flowers grow with the hollow of their cup up- 
wards : others " hang the pensive head," and turn 
the opening downwards. Now of these " nodding 



MASS OF THE EARTH. 



47 



flowers," as Linnaeus calls them, he observes that 
they are such as have their pistil longer than the 
stamens ; and, in consequence of this position, the 
dust from the anthers which are at the ends of the 
stamens can fall upon the stigma or extremity of the 
pistil; which process is requisite for making the 
flower fertile. He gives as instances the flowers 
ca?njmnula, leucoium, galanthus, fritillaria. Other 
botanists have remarked that the position changes at 
different periods of the flower's progress. The pistil 
of the Euphorbia (which is a little globe or germen 
on a slendar stalk) grows upright at first, and is taller 
than the stamens : at the period suited to its fecun- 
dation, the stalk bends under the weight of the ball 
at its extremity, so as to depress the germen below 
the stamens ; after this it again becomes erect, the 
globe being now a fruit filled with fertile seeds. 

The positions in all these cases depend upon the 
length and flexibility of the stalk which supports the 
flower, or in the case of the Euphorbia, the germen. 
It is clear that a very slight alteration in the force of 
gravity, or in the stiffness of the stalk, would entirely 
alter the position of the flower cup, and thus make 
the continuation of the species impossible. We have 
therefore here a little mechanical contrivance, which 
would have been frustrated if the proper intensity of 
gravity had not been assumed in the reckoning. An 
earth greater or smaller, denser or rarer than the 
one on which we live, would require a change in the 
structure and strength of the footstalks of all the lit- 
tle flowers that hang their heads under our hedges. 
There is something curious in thus considering the 
whole mass of the earth from pole to pole, and from 
circumference to centre, as employed in keeping a 
snowdrop in the position most suited to the promo- 
tion of its vegetable health. 

It would be easy to mention many other parts of 
the economy of vegetable life, which depend for 
s their use on their adaptation to the force of gravity. 
Such are the forces and conditions which determine 



48 



TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS. 



the positions of leaves and of branches. Such again 
those parts of the vegetable constitution which have 
reference to the pressure of the atmosphere ; for dif- 
ferences in this pressure appear to exercise a power- 
ful influence on the functions of plants, and to require 
differences of structure. But we pass over these con- 
siderations. The slightest attention to the relations 
of natural objects will show that the subject is in- 
exhaustible ; and all that we can or need do is to 
give a few examples, such as may show the nature 
of the impression which the examination of the uni- 
verse produces. 

3. Another instance of the adjustment of organic 
structure to the force of gravity may be pointed out 
in the muscular powers of animals. If the force of 
^gravity were increased in any considerable propor- 
tion at the surface of the earth, it is manifest that all 
the swiftness, and strength, and grace of animal mo- 
tious must disappear. If, for instance, the earth were 
as large as Jupiter, gravity would be eleven times 
what it is, the lightness of the fawn, the speed of the 
hare, the spring of the tiger, could no longer exist 
with the existing muscular powers of those animals ; 
for man to lift himself upright, or to crawl from 
place to place, w r ould be a labour slower and more 
painful than the motions of the sloth. The density 
and pressure of the air too would be increased to an 
intolerable extent, and the operation of respiration, 
and others, which depend upon these mechanical pro- 
perties, w r ould be rendered laborious, ineffectual, and 
probably impossible. 

If, on the other hand, the force of gravity were 
much lessened, inconveniences of an opposite kind 
would occur. The air w r ould be too thin to breathe ; 
the weight of our bodies, and of all the substances 
surrounding us, would become too slight to resist 
the perpetually occurring causes of derangement and 
unsteadiness : we should feel a w r ant of ballast in our 
movements. 

It has sometimes been maintained by fanciful the* 



MASS OF THE EARTH. 



49 



orists that the earth is merely a shell, and that the 
central parts are hollow. All the reasons we can 
collect appear to be in favour of its being a solid 
mass, considerably denser than any known rock. If 
this be so, and if we suppose the interior to be at any 
time scooped out, so as to leave only such a shell as 
the above mentioned speculators have asserted, we 
should not be left in ignorance of the change, though 
the appearance of the surface might remain the 
same. We should discover the want of the usual 
force of gravity, by the instability of all about us. 
Things would not lie where we placed them, but 
would slide away with the slightest push. We should 
have a difficulty in standing or walking, something 
like what we have on ship-board when the deck is 
inclined; and we should stagger helplessly through 
an atmosphere thinner than that which oppresses the 
respiration of the traveller on the tops of the highest 
mountains. 

We see therefore that those dark and unknown 
central portions of the earth, which are placed far 
beyond the reach of the miner and the geologist, and 
of which man will probably never know anything 
directly, are not to be considered as quite discon- 
nected with us, as deposits of useless lumber without 
effect or purpose. We feel their influence an every 
step we take and on every breath we draw ; and the 
powers we possess, and the comforts we enjoy would 
be unprofitable to us, if they had not been prepared 
with a reference to those as well as to the near and 
visible portions of the earth's mass. 

The arbitrary quantity, therefore, of which we 
have been treating, the intensity of the force of gra- 
vity, appears to have been taken account of, in es- 
tablishing the laws of those forces by which the pro- 
cesses of vegetable and animal life are carried on. 
And this leads us inevitably, we conceive, to the be- 
lief of a supreme contriving mind, by which these 
laws were thus devised and thus established. 

E 



50 



CHAPTER IV. 

The Magnitude of the Ocean. 

There are several arbitrary quantities which con- 
tribute to determine the state of things at the earth's 
surface besides those already mentioned. Some of 
these we shall briefly refer to, without pursuing the 
subject into detail. We wish not only to show that 
the properties and processes of vegetable and animal 
life must be adjusted to each of these quantities in 
particular, but also to point out how numerous and 
complicated the conditions of the existence of or- 
ganized beings are; and we shall thus be led to think 
less inadequately of the intelligence which has em- 
braced at once, and combined without confusion, all 
these conditions. We appear thus to be conducted 
to the conviction not only of design and intention, 
but of supreme knowledge and wisdom. 

One of the quantities which enters into the consti- 
tution of the terrestrial system of things is the bulk of 
the waters of the ocean. The mean depth of the sea, 
according to the calculations of Laplace, is four or 
five miles. On this supposition, the addition to the 
sea of one-fourth of the existing waters would drown 
the whole of the globe, except a few chains of moun- 
tains. Whether this be exact or no, we can easily 
conceive the quantity of water which lies in the cavi- 
ties of our globe to be greater or less than it at pre- 
sent is. With every such addition or subtraction 
the form and magnitude of the dry land would vary, 
and if this change were considerable, many of the 
present relations of things would be altered. It may 
be sufficient to mention one effect of such a change. 
The sources which water the earth, both clouds, 
rains, and rivers, are mainly fed by the aqueous va- 



MAGNITUDE OF THE ATMOSPHERE. 



51 



pour raised from the sea ; and therefore if the sea 
were much diminished, and the land increased, the 
mean quantity of moisture distributed upon the land 
must be diminished, and the character of climates, 
as to wet and dry, must be materially affected. Simi- 
lar, but opposite changes would result from the in- 
crease of the surface of the ocean. 

It appears then that the magnitude of the ocean is 
one of the conditions to which the structure of all 
organized beings which are dependent upon climate 
must be adapted. 



CHAPTER V. 

The Magnitude of the Atmosphere. 

The total quantity of air of which our atmosphere 
is composed is another of the arbitrary magnitudes 
of our terrestrial system; and we may apply to this 
subject considerations similar to those of the last sec- 
tion. We can see no reason why the atmosphere 
might not have been larger in comparison to the 
globe which it surrounds ; those of Mars and Jupi- 
ter appear to be so. But if the quantity of air were 
increased, the structure of organized beings would 
in many ways cease to be adapted to their place. 
The atmospheric pressure, for instance, would be in- 
creased, which, as we have already noticed, would 
require an alteration in the structure of vegetables. 

Another way in which an increase of the mass of 
the atmosphere would produce inconvenience would 
be in the force of winds. If the current of air in a 
strong gale were doubled or tripled, as might be the 
case if the atmosphere were augmented, the destruc- 
tive effects would be more than doubled or tripled. 
With such a change, nothing could stand against a 
storm. In general, houses and trees resist the vio- 



52 



TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS. 



lence of the wind ; and except in extreme cases, as 
for instance in occasional hurricanes in the West In- 
dies, a few large trees in a forest are unusual trophies 
of the power of the tempest. The breezes which we 
commonly have are harmless messengers to bring 
about the salutary changes of the atmosphere, even 
the motion which they communicate to vegetables 
tends to promote their growth, and is so advan- 
tageous, that it has been proposed to imitate it by 
artificial breezes in the hothouse. But with a stream 
of wind blowing against them, like three, or five, or 
ten, gales compressed into the space of one, none of 
the existing trees could stand ; and except, they could 
either bend like rushes in a stream, or extend their 
roots far wider than their branches, they must be 
torn up in w T hole groves. We have thus a manifest 
adaptation of the present usual strength of the ma- 
terials and of the workmanship of the world to the 
stress of wind and weather which they have to 
sustain, 



CHAPTER VI. 

The Constancy and Variety of Climates. 

It is possible to conceive arrangements of our sys- 
tem, according to which all parts of the earth might 
have the same, or nearly the same, climate. If, for 
example, we suppose the earth to be a flat disk, or 
flat ring, like the ring of Saturn, revolving in its own 
plane as that does, each part of both the flat sur- 
faces would have the same exposure to the sun, and 
the same temperature, so far as the sun's effect is 
concerned. There is no obvious reason why a planet 
of such a form might not be occupied by animals 
and vegetables, as well as our present earth ; and on 
this supposition the climate would be every where 



CLIMATES. 



53 



the same, and the whole surface might be covered 
with life, without the necessity of there being any 
difference in the kind of inhabitants belonging to dif- 
ferent parts. 

Again, it is possible to conceive arrangements ac- 
cording to which no part of our planet should have 
any steady climate. This may probably be the case 
w 7 ith a comet. If we suppose such a body, revolving 
round the sun in a very oblong ellipse, to be of small 
size and of a very high temperature, and therefore 
to cool rapidly ; and if we suppose it also to be sur- 
rounded by a large atmosphere, composed of various 
gases; there would, on the surface of such a body, 
be no average climate or seasons for each place. 
The years, if we give this name to the intervals of 
time occupied by its successive revolutions, would be 
entirely unlike one another. The greatest heat of 
one year might be cool compared with the greatest 
cold of a preceding one. The greatest heats and 
colds might succeed each other at intervals per- 
petually unequal. The atmosphere might be per- 
petually changing its composition by the condensa- 
tion of some of its constituent gases. In the opera- 
tions of the elements, all would be incessant and 
rapid change, without recurrence or compensation. 
We cannot say that organized beings could not be 
fitted for such a habitation ; but if they were, the 
adaptation must be made by means of a constitution 
quite different from that of almost all organized be- 
ings known to us. 

The state of things upon the earth, in its present 
condition, is very different from both these supposi- 
tions. The climate of the same place, notwithstand- 
ing perpetual and apparently irregular change, pos- 
sesses a remarkable steadiness. And, though in 
different places the annual succession of appear- 
ances in the earth and heavens, is, in some of its 
main characters, the same, the result of these influ- 
ences in the average climate is very different. 

Now, to this remarkable constitution of the earth 
e2 



54 



TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS* 



as to climate, the constitution of the animal and ve- 
getable world is precisely adapted. The differences 
of different climates are provided for by the exist- 
ence of entirely different classes of plants and ani- 
mals in different countries. The constancy of climate 
at the same place is a necessary condition of the 
prosperity of each species there fixed. 

We shall illustrate, by a few details, these charac- 
teristics in the constitution of inorganic and of or- 
ganic nature, with the view of fixing the readers 
attention upon the correspondence of the two. 

1. The succession and alternation, at any given 
place, of heat and cold, rain and sunshine, wind and 
calm, and other atmospheric changes, appears at first 
sight to be extremely irregular, and not subject to 
any law. It is, however, easy to see, with a little 
attention, that there is a certain degree of constancy 
in the average weather and seasons of each place, 
though the particular facts of w^hich these generali- 
ties are made up seem to be out of the reach of fixed 
laws. And when we apply any numerical measure 
to these particular occurrences, and take the average 
of the numbers thus observed, we generally find a 
remarkably close correspondence in the numbers be- 
longing to the whole, or to analogous portions of 
successive years. This will be found to apply to the 
measures given by the thermometer, the barometer, 
the hygrometer, the raingage, and similar instru- 
ments. Thus it is found that very hot summers, or 
very cold winters, raise or depress the mean annual 
temperature very little above or below the general 
standard. 

The heat may be expressed by degrees of the 
thermometer ; the temperature of the day is esti- 
mated by this measure taken at a certain period of 
the day, which is found by experience to correspond 
with the daily average ; and the mean annual tem- 
perature will then be the average of all the heights 
of the thermometer for every day in the year. 

The mean annual temperature of London, thus 



CLIMATES. 



55 



measured, is about 50 degrees 4-10ths. The frost of 
the year 1788 was so severe that the Thames was 
passable on the ice ; the mean temperature of that 
year was 50 degrees 6-10ths, being within a small 
fraction a degree of the standard. In 1796, when the 
greatest cold ever observed in London occurred, the 
mean temperature of the year was 50 degrees l-10th 9 
which is likewise within a fraction of a degree of the 
standard. In the severe winter of 1813-14, when the 
Thames, Tyne, and other large rivers in England 
were completely frozen over, the mean temperature 
of the two years was 49 degrees, being little more 
than a degree below the standard. And in the year 
1808, when the summer was so hot that the tempera- 
ture in London was as high as 93Jr degrees, the mean 
heat of the year was 50^-, which is about that of the 
standard. 

The same numerical indications of the constancy 
of climate at the same place might be collected from 
the records of other instruments of the kind above- 
mentioned. 

We shall, hereafter, consider some of the very 
complex agencies by which this steadiness is pro- 
duced ; and shall endeavour to point out intentional 
adaptations to this object. But we may, in the mean- 
time, observe how this property of the atmospheric 
changes is made subservient to a further object. 

To this constancy of the climates of each place, 
the structure of plants is adapted ; almost all vege- 
tables require a particular mean temperature of the 
year, or of some season of the year ; a particular de- 
gree of moisture, and similar conditions. This will 
be seen by observing that the range of most plants 
as to climate is very limited. A vegetable which 
flourishes where the mean temperature is 55 degrees, 
would pine and wither when removed to a region 
where the average is 50 degrees. If, therefore, the 
average at each place w r ere to vary as much as this, 
our plants with their present constitutions would suf- 
fer, languish, and soon die. 



56 



TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS. 



2. It will be readily understood that the same 
mode of measurement by which we learn the con- 
stancy of climate at the same place, serves to show 
us the variety which belongs to different places. 
While the variations of the same region vanish when 
we take the averages even of moderate periods, 
those of distant countries are fixed and perpetual ; 
and stand out more clear and distinct, the longer is 
the interval for which we measure their operation. 

In the way of measuring already described, the 
mean temperature of Petersburg is 39 degrees, of 
Rome 60, of Cairo 72. Such observations as these, 
and others of the same kind, have been made at va- 
rious places, collected and recorded; and in this way 
the surface of the earth can be divided by boundary 
lines into various strips, according to these physical 
differences. Thus, the zones which take in all the 
places having the same or nearly the same mean an- 
nual temperature, have been called isothermal zones. 
These zones run nearly parallel to the equator, but 
not exactly, for, in Europe, they bend to the north 
in going eastward. In the same manner, the lines 
passing through all places which have an equal tem- 
perature for the summer or the winter half of the 
year, have been called respectively isotheral and iso- 
chimal lines. These do not coincide with the isother- 
mal lines, for a place may have the same tempera- 
ture as another, though its summer be hotter and its 
winter colder, as is the case of Pekin compared with 
London. In the same way we might conceive lines 
drawn according to the conditions of clouds, rain, 
wind, and the like circumstances, if we had observa- 
tions enough to enable us to lay down such lines. 
The course of vegetation depends upon the combined 
influence of all such conditions; and the lines which 
bound the spread of particular vegetable productions 
do not, in most cases, coincide with any of the se- 
parate meteorological boundaries above spoken of. 
Thus, the northern limit of vineyards runs through 
France, in a direction very nearly north-east and 



GEOGRAPHY OF PLANTS. 



57 



south-west, while the line of equal temperature is 
nearly east and west. And the spontaneous growth 
or advantageous cultivation of other plants, is in like 
manner bounded by lines of which the course de- 
pends upon very complex causes, but of which the 
position is generally precise and fixed. 



CHAPTER VII. 

The Variety of Organization corresponding to the Va- 
riety of Climate, 

The organization of plants and animals is in dif- 
ferent tribes formed upon schemes more or less dif- 
ferent, but in all cases adjusted in a general way to 
the course and action of the elements. The diffe- 
rences are connected with the different habits and 
mariners of living which belong to different species ; 
and at any one place the various species, both of 
animals and plants, have a number of relations and 
mutual dependences arising out of these differences. 
But besides the differences of this kind, we find in 
the forms of organic life another set of differences, 
by which the animal and vegetable kingdom are fit- 
ted for that variety in the climates of the earth, 
which we have been endeavouring to explain. 

The existence of such differences is too obvious to 
require to be dwelt upon. The plants and animals 
which flourish and thrive in countries remote from 
each other, offer to the eye of the traveller a series 
of pictures, which, even to an ignorant and unreflec- 
tive spectator, is full of a peculiar and fascinating in- 
terest in consequence of the novelty and strangeness 
of the successive scenes. 

Those who describe the countries between the 
tropics, speak with admiration of the luxuriant pro- 
fusion and rich variety of the vegetable productions 



58 



TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS. 



of those regions. Vegetable life seems there far more 
vigorous and active, the circumstances under which 
it goes on, far more favourable than in our latitudes. 
Now if we conceive an inhabitant of those regions, 
knowing, from the circumstances of the earth's form 
and motion, the difference of climates which must 
prevail upon it, to guess, from what he saw about 
him, the condition of other parts of the globe as to 
vegetable wealth, is not likely that he would suppose 
that the extratropical climates must be almost devoid 
of plants? We know that the ancients, living in the 
temperate zone, came to the conclusion that both the 
torrid and the frigid zones must be uninhabitable. In 
like manner the equatorial reasoner w T ould probably 
conceive that vegetation must cease, or gradually 
die away, as he should proceed to places further and 
further removed from the genial influence of the sun. 
The mean temperature of his year being about 80 
degrees, he w 7 ould hardly suppose that any plants 
could subsist through a year, where the mean tem- 
perature was only 50, where the temperature of the 
summer quarter was only 64, and where the mean 
temperature of a whole quarter of the year w r as a 
very few degrees removed from that at w T hich water 
becomes solid. He would suppose that scarcely any 
tree, shrub, or flower could exist in such a state of 
things, and so far as the plants of his own country 
are concerned, he w r ould judge rightly. 

But the countries further removed from the equa- 
tor are not left thus unprovided. Instead of being 
scantily occupied by such of the tropical plants as 
could support a stunted and precarious life in unge- 
nial climes, they are abundantly stocked with a mul- 
titude of vegetables which appear to be constructed 
expressly for them, inasmuch as these species can no 
more flourish at the equator than the equatorial spe- 
cies can in these temperate regions. And such new- 
supplies thus adapted to new conditions, recur per- 
petually as we advance towards the apparently frozen 
and untenantable regions in the neighbourhood of the 



GEOGRAPHY OF PLANTS. 



59 



pole. Every zone has its peculiar vegetables; and as 
we miss some, we find others make their appearance, 
as if to replace those which are absent. 

If we look at the indigenous plants of Asia and 
Europe, we find such a succession as we have here 
spoken of. At the equator we find the natives of the 
Spice Islands, the clove and nutmeg trees, pepper 
and mace. Cinnamon bushes clothe the surface of 
Ceylon; the odoriferous sandal wood, the ebony tree, 
the teak tree, the banyan, grow in the East Indies. 
In the same latitudes in Arabia the Happy we find 
balm, frankincense and myrrh, the coffee tree, and 
the tamarind. But in these countries, at least in the 
plains, the trees and shrubs which decorate our more 
northerly climes are wanting. And as we go north- 
wards, at every step we change the vegetable group, 
both by addition and by subtraction. In the thickets 
to the west of the Caspian Sea we have the apricot, 
citron, peach, walnut. In the same latitude in Spain, 
Sicily, and Italy, we find the dwarf palm, the cy- 
press, the chestnut, the cork tree : the orange and 
lemon tree perfume the air with their blossoms ; the 
myrtle and pomegranate grow wild among the rocks. 
We cross the Alps, and we find the vegetation which 
belongs to northern Europe, of which England is an 
instance. The oak, the beech, and the elm are na- 
tives of Great Britain : the elm tree seen in Scotland, 
and in the north of England, is the wych elm. As 
we travel still further to the north the forests again 
change their character. In the northern provinces 
of the Russian empire are found forests of the vari- 
ous species of firs : the Scotch and spruce fir, and 
the larch. In the Orkney Islands no tree is found 
but the hazel, which occurs again on the northern 
i shores of the Baltic. As we proceed into colder re- 
i gions we still find species which appear to have been 
made for these situations. The hoary or cold elder 
makes its appearance north of Stockholm: the syca- 
more and mountain ash accompany us to the head 
of the gulf of Bothnia : and as we leave this and tra- 



60 TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS. 

verse the Dophrian range, we pass in succession the 
boundary lines of the spruce fir, the Scotch fir, and 
those minute shrubs which botanists distinguish as 
the dwarf birch and dwarf willow. Here, near to 
or within the arctic circle, we yet find wild flowers 
of great beauty ; the mezereum, the yellow and white 
water lily, and the European globe flower. And 
when these fail us, the reindeer moss still makes the 
country habitable for animals and man. 

We have thus a variety in the laws of vegetable 
organization remarkably adapted to the variety of 
climates ; and by this adaptation the globe is clothed 
with vegetation and peopled with animals from pole 
to pole, while without such an adaptation vegetable 
and animal life must have been confined almost, or 
entirely, to some narrow zone on the earth's surface. 
We conceive that we see here the evidence of a wise 
and benevolent intention, overcoming the varying 
difficulties, or employing the varying resources of 
the elements, with an inexhaustible fertility of con- 
trivance, a constant tendency to diffuse life and well 
being. 

2. One of the great uses to which the vegetable 
wealth of the earth is applied, is the support of man, 
whom it provides with food and clothing ; and the 
adaptation of tribes of indigenous vegetables to every 
climate has, we cannot but believe, a reference to the 
intention that the human race should be diffused over 
the whole globe. But this end is not answered by 
indigenous vegetables alone ; and in the variety of 
vegetables capable of being cultivated with advan- 
tage in various countries, we conceive that we find 
evidence of an additional adaptation of the scheme 
of organic life to the system of the elements. 

The cultivated vegetables, which form the neces- 
saries or luxuries of human life, are each confined 
within limits, narrow, when compared with the whole 
surface of the earth ; yet almost every part of the 
earth's surface is capable of being abundantly co- 
vered with one kind or other of these. When one 



GEOGRAPHY OF PLANTS. 



61 



class fails, another appears in its place. Thus corn, 
wine, and oil, have each its boundaries. Wheat ex- 
tends through the old Continent, from England to 
Thibet : but it stops soon in going northwards, and 
is not found to succeed in the west of Scotland. Nor 
does it thrive better in the torrid zone than in the 
polar regions : within the tropics, wheat, barley and 
oats are not cultivated, excepting in situations con- 
siderably above the level of the sea : the inhabitants 
of those countries have other species of grain, or 
other food. The cultivation of the vine succeeds 
only in countries where the annual temperature is 
between oO and 63 degrees. In both hemispheres, 
the profitable culture of this plant ceases within 30 
degrees of the equator, unless in elevated situations, 
or in islands, as Teneriffe. The limits of the culti- 
vation of maize and of olives in France are parallel 
to those which bound the vine and corn in succes- 
sion to the north. In the north of Italy, west of 
Milan, we first meet with the cultivation of rice ; 
which extends over all the southern part of Asia, 
wherever the land can be at pleasure covered with 
water. In great part of Africa millet is one of the 
principal kinds of grain. 

Cotton is cultivated to latitude 40 in the new world, 
but extends to Astrachan in latitude 46 in the old. 
The sugar cane, the plantain, the mulberry, the betel 
nut, the indigo tree, the tea tree, repay the labours 
of the cultivator in India and China ; and several of 
these plants have been transferred, with success, to 
America and the West Indies, In equinoctial Ame- 
rica a great number of inhabitants find abundant 
nourishment on a narrow space cultivated with plan- 
tain, cassava yams, and maize. The bread fruit tree 
begins to be cultivated in the Manillas, and extends 
1 through the Pacific : the sago palm in the Moluccas, 
the cabbage tree in the Pelew islands. 

In this mariner the various tribes of men are pro- 
vided with vegetable food. Some however live on 

F 



62 



TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS. 



their cattle, and thus make the produce of the earth 
only mediately subservient to their wants. Thus the 
Tartar tribes depend on their flocks and herds for 
food: the taste for the flesh of the horse seems to 
belong to the Mongols, Fins, and other descendants 
of the ancient Scythians: the locust eaters are found 
now, as formerly, in Africa. 

Many of these differences depend upon custom, 
soil, and other causes with which we do not here 
meddle; but many are connected with climate: and 
the variety of the resources which man thus possesses, 
arises from the variety of constitution belonging to 
cultivable vegetables, through which one is fitted to 
one range of climate, and another to another. We 
conceive that this variety and succession of fitness 
for cultivation, shows undoubted marks of a most 
foreseeing and benevolent design in the Creator of 
man and of the world. 

3. By differences in vegetables of the kind we 
have above described, the sustentation and gratifica- 
tion of man's physical nature is copiously provided 
for. But there is another circumstance, a result of 
the difference of the native products of different re- 
gions, and therefore a consequence of that difference 
of climate on which the difference of native pro- 
ducts depends,* which appears to be worthy our 
notice. The difference of the productions of differ- 
ent countries has a bearing not only upon the phy- 
sical, but upon the social and moral condition of 
man. 

The intercourse of nations in the way of dis- 
covery, colonization, commerce; the study of the 
natural history, manners, institutions of foreign 
countries; lead to most numerous and important re- 
sults. Without dwelling upon this subject, it will 

* It will be observed that it is not here asserted that the dif- 
ference of native products depends on the difference of climate 
alone. 



GEOGRAPHY OF PLANTS. 



63 



probably be allowed that such intercourse has a 
great influence upon the comforts, the prosperity, 
the arts, the literature, the power, of the nations 
which thus communicate. Now the variety of the 
productions of different lands supplies both the sti- 
mulus to this intercourse, and the instruments by 
which it produces its effects. The desire to possess 
the objects or the knowledge which foreign countries 
alone can supply, urges the trader, the traveller, the 
discoverer to compass land and sea ; and the pro- 
gress of the arts and advantages of civilization con- 
sists almost entirely in the cultivation, the use, the 
improvement of that which has been received from 
other countries. 

This is the case to a much greater extent than 
might at first sight be supposed. Where man is 
active as a cultivator, he scarcely ever bestows 
much of his care on those vegetables which the 
land would produce in a state of nature. He does 
not select some of the plants of the soil and improve 
them by careful culture, but, for the most part, he 
expels the native possessors of the land, and intro- 
duces colonies of strangers. 

Thus, to take the condition of our own part of the 
globe as an example ; scarcely one of the plants 
which occupy our fields and gardens is indigenous 
to the country. The walnut and the peach come to 
us from Persia; the apricot from Armenia: from 
Asia Minor, and Syria, we have the cherry tree, 
the fig, the pear, the pomegranate, the olive, the 
plum, and the mulberry. The vine which is now 
cultivated is not a native of Europe ; it is found wild 
on the shores of the Caspian, in Armenia and Cara- 
mania. The most useful species of plants, the cereal 
vegetables, are certainly strangers, though their 
birth place seems to be an impenetrable secret. 
Some have fancied that barley is found wild on the 
banks of the Semara, in Tartary, rye in Crete, wheat 
at Baschkiros, in Asia; but this is held by the best 
botanists to be very doubtful. The potatoe, which 



64 



TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS. 



has been so widely diffused over the world in modern 
times, and has added so much to the resources of 
life in many countries, has been found equally dif- 
ficult to trace back to its wild condition. 

Thus widely are spread the traces of the connex- 
ion of the progress of civilization with national in- 
tercourse. In our own country a higher state of the 
arts of life is marked by a more ready and extensive 
adoption of foreign productions. Our fields are 
covered with herbs from Holland, and roots from 
Germany; with Flemish farming and Swedish tur- 
nips; our hills with forests of the firs of Norway. 
The chestnut and poplar of the south of Europe 
adorn our lawns, and below them flourish shrubs 
and flowers from every clime in profusion. In the 
mean time Arabia improves our horses, China our 
pigs, North America our poultry, Spain our sheep, 
and almost every country sends its dog. The pro- 
ducts which are ingredients in our luxuries, and 
which we cannot naturalize at home, we raise in our 
colonies; the cotton,, coffee, sugar of the east are 
thus transplanted to the farthest west; and man lives 
in the middle of a rich and varied abundance which 
depends on the facility with which plants and animals 
and modes of culture can be transferred into lands 
far removed from those in which nature had placed 
them. And this plenty and variety of material com- 
forts is the companion and the mark of advantages 
and improvements in social life, of progress in art 
and science, of activity of thought, of energy of 
purpose, and of ascendancy of character. 

The differences in the productions of different 
countries which lead to the habitual intercourse of 
nations, and through this to the benefits which we 
have thus briefly noticed, do not all depend upon the 
differences of temperature and climate alone. But 
these differences are among the causes, and are some 
of the most important causes, or conditions, of the 
variety of products; and thus that arrangement of 



GEOGRAPHY OF PLANTS. 



65 



the earth's form and motion from which the different 
climates of different places arises, is connected with 
the social and moral welfare and advancement of 
man. 

We conceive that this connexion, though there 
must be to our apprehension much that is indefinite 
and uncertain in tracing its details, is yet a point 
where we may perceive the profound and compre- 
hensive relations established by the counsel and fore- 
sight of a wise and good Creator of the world and of 
man, by whom the progress and elevation of the hu- 
man species was neither uncontemplated nor uncared 
for. 

4. We have traced, in the variety of organized 
beings, an adaptation to the variety of climates, a 
provision for the sustentation of man all over the 
globe, and an instrument for the promotion of civil- 
ization and many attendant benefits. We have not 
considered this variety as itself a purpose which we 
can perceive or understand without reference to 
some ulterior end. Many persons, however, and 
especially those who are already in the habit of re- 
ferring the world to its Creator, will probably see 
something admirable in itself in this vast variety of 
created things. There is indeed something well 
fitted to produce and confirm a reverential wonder, 
in these apparently inexhaustible stores of new forms 
of being and modes of existence : the fixitv of the 
laws of each class, its distinctness from all others, its 
relations to many. Structures and habits and cha- 
racters are exhibited, which are connected and dis- 
tinguished according to every conceivable degree of 
subordination and analogy, in their resemblances 
and in their differences. Every new country we ex- 
plore presents us with new combinations, where the 
possible cases seem to be exhausted; and with new 
resemblances and differences, constructed as if to 
elude what conjecture might have hit upon, by pro- 
ceeding from the old ones. Most of those who have 

f2 



66 



TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS, 



any large portion of nature brought under their no- 
tice in this point of view, are led to feel that there is, 
in such a creation, a harmony, a beauty, and a dig- 
nity, of which the impression is irresistible ; which 
w r ould have been wanting in any more uniform and 
limited system such as we might try to imagine; and 
which of itself gives to the arrangements by w r hich 
such a variety on the earth's surface is produced, the 
character of well devised means to a worthy end. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

The Constituents of Climate, 

We have spoken of the steady average of the elf- 
mate at each place, of the difference of this average 
at different places, and of the adaptation of organized 
beings to this character in the laws of the elements 
by which they are affected. But this steadiness in 
the general effect of the elements, is the result of an 
extremely complex and extensive machinery. Cli- 
mate, in its wider sense, is not one single agent, but 
is the aggregate result of a great number of different 
agents, governed by different laws, producing effects 
of various kinds. The steadiness of this compound 
agency is not the steadiness of a permanent condi- 
tion, like that of a body at rest ; but it is the steadi- 
ness of a state of constant change and movement, 
succession and alternation, seeming accident and 
irregularity. It is a perpetual repose, combined 
with a perpetual motion ; an invariable average of 
most variable quantities. Now, the manner in which 
such a state of things is produced, deserves, we con- 
ceive, a closer consideration. It may be useful to 
show how the particular laws of the action of each 
of the elements of climate are so adjusted that they 
do not disturb this general constancy. 



LAWS OF HEAT THE EARTH. 



67 



The principal constituents of climate are the fol- 
lowing : — the temperature of the earth, of the water, 
of the air : — the distribution of the aqueous vapour 
contained in the atmosphere : — the winds and rains 
by which the equilibrium of the atmosphere is re- 
stored when it is in any degree disturbed. The 
effects of light, of electricity, probably of other 
causes also, are no doubt important in the economy 
of the vegetable world, but these agencies have not 
been reduced by scientific inquirers to such laws as 
to admit of their being treated with the same exact- 
ness and certainty which we can obtain in the case 
of those first mentioned. 

We shall proceed to trace some of the peculiari- 
ties in the laws of the different physical agents which 
are in action at the earth's surface, and the manner 
in which these peculiarities bear upon the general 
result. 



The Laics of Heat with respect to the Earth. 

One of the main causes w r hich determine the tem- 
perature of each climate is the effect of the sun's 
rays on the solid mass of the earth. The laws of 
this operation have been recently made out with 
considerable exactness, experimentally by Leslie, 
theoretically by Fourrier, and by other inquirers. 
The theoretical inquiries have required the applica- 
tion of very complex and abstruse mathematical in- 
vestigations; but the general character of the opera- 
tion may, perhaps, be made easily intelligible. 

The earth, like all solid bodies, transmits into its 
interior the impressions of heat which it receives at 
the surface; and throws off the superfluous heat from 
its surface into the surrounding space. These pro- 
cesses are called conduction and radiation, and have 
each their ascertained mathematical laws. 

By the laws of conduction, the daily impressions 
of heat which the earth receives, follow^ each other 



68 



TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS. 



Into the interior of the mass, like the waves which 
start from the edge of a canal ;* and like them, be- 
come more and more faint as they proceed, till they 
melt into the general level of the internal tempera- 
ture. The heat thus transmitted is accumulated in 
the interior of the earth, as in a reservoir, and flows 
from one part to another of this reservoir. The parts 
of the earth near the equator are more heated by the 
sun than other parts, and on this account there is a 
perpetual internal conduction of heat from the equa- 
torial to other parts of the sphere. And as all parts 
of the surface throw off heat by radiation, in the po- 
lar regions, where the surface receives little in return 
from the sun, a constant waste is produced. There 
is thus from the polar parts a perpetual dispersion of 
heat in the surrounding space, which is supplied by 
a perpetual internal flow from the equator towards 
each pole. 

Here, then, is a kind of circulation of heat ; and 
the quantity and rapidity of this circulation, deter- 
mine the quantity of heat in the solid part of the 
earth, and in each portion of it; and through this, 
the mean temperature belonging to each point on its 
surface. 

If the earth conducted heat more rapidly than it 
does, the inequalities of temperature would be more 
quickly balanced, and the temperature of the ground 
(below the reach of annual and diurnal variations) 
would differ less than it does. If the surface radiated 
more rapidly than it does, the flow of heat from the 
polar regions would increase, and the temperature 
of the interior of the globe would find a lower level ; 
the differences of temperature in different latitudes 

* The resemblance consists in this ; that we have a strip of 
greater temperature accompanied by a strip of smaller tempera- 
ture, these strips arising from the diurnal and nocturnal impres- 
sions respectively, and being in motion; as in the waves on a 
canal, we have a moving strip of greater elevation accompanied 
by a strip of smaller elevation. We do not here refer to any 
hypothetical undulations in the fluid matter of heat. 



LAWS OF HEAT. THE EARTH. 



69 



would increase, but the mean temperature of the 
globe would dimininish. 

There is nothing which, so far as we can perceive, 
determines necessarily, either the conducting or the 
radiating power of the earth to its present value. 
The measures of such powers, in different substances, 
differ very widely. If the earth were a globe of pure 
iron, it would conduct heat, probably, twenty times 
as well as it does; if its surface were polished iron, 
it w r ould only radiate one-sixth as much as it does. 
Changes in the amount of the conduction and radia- 
tion far less than these, would, probably, subvert the 
whole thermal constitution of the earth, and make it 
uninhabitable by any of its present vegetable, or ani- 
mal tenants. 

One of the results of the laws of heat, as they exist 
in the globe, is, that, by their action, the thermal 
state tends to a limiting condition, which, once 
reached, remains constant and steady, as it now is, 
The oscillations or excursions from the mean condi- 
tion, produced by any temporary cause, are rapidly 
suppressed ; the deviations of seasons from their 
usual standard produce only a small and transient 
effect. The impression of an extremely hot day 
upon the ground melts almost immediately into the 
average internal heat. The effect of a hot summer, 
in like manner, is soon lost in its progress through 
the globe. If this were otherwise, if the inequalities 
and oscillations of heat w r ent on, through the interior 
of the earth, retaining the same value, or becoming 
larger and larger, w T e might have the extreme heats 
or colds of one place making their appearance at 
another place after a long interval ; like a conflagra- 
tion which creeps along a street and bursts out at a 
point remote from its origin. 

It appears, therefore, that both the present differ- 
ences of climate, and the steadiness of the average 
at each place, depend upon the form of the present 
laws of heat, and on the arbitrary magnitudes which 
determine the rate of conduction and radiation, The 



70 



TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS. 



laws are such as to secure us from increasing and 
destructive inequalities of heat ; the arbitrary magni- 
tudes are elements to which the organic world is ad- 
justed. 



CHAPTER IX. 

The Laws of Heat with respect to Water, 

The manner in which heat is transmitted through 
fluids is altogether different from the mode in which 
it passes through solids ; and hence the waters of the 
earth's surface produce peculiar effects upon its con- 
dition as to temperature. Moreover, water is sus- 
ceptible of evaporation in a degree depending upon 
the increase of heat; and in consequence of this pro- 
perty it has most extensive and important functions 
to discharge in the economy of nature. We will 
consider some of the offices of this fluid. 

1. Heat is communicated through water, not by 
being cojiducted from one part of the fluid to another, 
as in solid bodies, but (at least principally) by being 
carried with the parts of the fluid by means of an in- 
testine motion. Water expands and becomes lighter 
by heat, and, therefore, if the upper parts be cooled 
below the subjacent temperature, this upper portion 
will become heavier than that below, bulk for bulk, 
and will descend through it, while the lower portion 
rises to take the upper place. In this manner the 
colder parts descend, and the warmer parts ascend 
by contrary currents, and by their interchange and 
mixture, reduce the whole to a temperature at least 
as low as that of the surface. And this equalization 
of temperature by means of such currents, is an ope- 
ration of a much more rapid nature than the slow 
motion of conduction by which heat creeps through 
a solid body. Hence, alternations of heat and cold. 



LAWS OF HEAT WATER. 



71 



as day and night, summer and winter, produce in 
water, inequalities of temperature much smaller than 
those which occur in a solid body. The heat com- 
municated is less, for transparent fluids imbibe heat 
very slowly ; and the cold impressed on the surface 
is soon diffused through the mass by internal circu- 
lation. 

Hence it follows that the ocean, which covers so 
large a portion of the earth, and affects the tempera- 
ture of the whole surface by its influence, produces 
the effect of making the alternations of heat and 
cold much less violent than they would be if it were 
absent. The different temperatures of its upper and 
lower parts produce a current which draws the seas, 
and by means of the seas, the air, towards the mean 
temperature. And this kind of circulation is pro- 
duced, not only between the upper and lower parts, 
but also between distant tracts of the ocean. The 
great Gulf Stream which rushes out of the Gulf of 
Mexico, and runs across the Atlantic to the western 
shores of Europe, carries w 7 ith it a portion of the 
tropical heat into northern regions: and the return- 
ing current w T hich descends along the coast of Africa, 
tends to cool the parts nearer the equator. Great as 
the difference of temperature is in different climates, 
it would be still greater if there were not this equal- 
izing and moderating power exerted constantly over 
the whole surface. Without this influence, it is pro- 
bable that the two polar portions of the earth, which 
are locked in perpetual ice and snow, and almost des- 
titute of life, would be much increased. 

We find an illustration of this effect of the ocean 
on temperature, in the peculiarities of the climates of 
maritime tracts and islands. The climate of such 
portions of the earth, corrected in some measure by 
the temperature of the neighbouring sea, is more 
equable than that of places in the same latitudes dif- 
ferently situated. London is cooler in summer and 
warmer in winter than Paris. 

2. Water expands by heat and contracts by cold, 



TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS. 



as has been already said ; and in consequence of this 
property, the coldest portions of the fluid generally 
occupy the lower parts. The continued progress of 
cold produces congelation. If, therefore, the law just 
mentioned had been strictly true, the lower parts of 
water would have been first frozen ; and being once 
frozen, hardly any heat applied at the surface could 
have melted them, for the warm fluid could not have 
descended through the colder parts. This is so far 
the case, that in a vessel containing ice at the bot- 
tom and water at the top, Rumford made the upper 
fluid boil without thawing the congealed cake below. 

Now, a law of water with respect to heat operat- 
ing in this manner, would have been very inconve- 
nient if it had obtained in our lakes and seas. They 
would all have had a bed of ice, increasing with 
every occasion, till the whole was frozen. We could 
have had no bodies of water, except such pools on 
the surfaces of these icy reservoirs as the summer 
sun could thaw, to be again frozen to the bottom 
with the first frosty night. The law of the regular 
contraction of water by cold till it became ice, would, 
therefore, be destructive of all the utilitv of our seas 
and lakes. How is this inconvenience obviated? 

It is obvitated by a modification of the law which 
takes place when the temperature approaches this 
limit. Water contracts by the increase of cold, 
till we come near the freezing temperature; but then, 
by a further increase of cold, it contracts no more, 
but expands till the point at which it becomes ice. It 
contracts in cooling down to 40 degrees of Fahren- 
heit's thermometer ; in cooling further it expands, 
and when cooled to 32 degrees, it freezes. Hence, 
the greatest density of the fluid is at 40 degrees, and 
water of this temperature, or near it, will lie at the 
bottom with cooler water or with ice floating above 
it However much the surface be cooled, water 
colder than 40 cannot descend to displace water 
warmer than itself. Hence we can never have ice 
formed at the bottom of deep water. In approaching 



I 



LAWS OF HEAT WATER. 73 

the freezing point, the coldest water will rise to the 
surface, and the congelation will take place there ; 
and the ice so formed will remain at the surface, ex- 
posed to the warmth of the sunbeams and the air, 
and will not survive any long continuance of such 
action. 

Another peculiarity in the laws which regulate the 
action of cold on water is, that in the very act of 
freezing a further sudden and considerable expansion 
takes place. Many persons will have known in- 
stances of vessels burst by the freezing of water in 
them* The consequence of this expansion is, that the 
specific gravity of ice is less than that of w r ater of any 
temperature ; and it therefore always floats in the 
unfrozen fluid. If this expansion of crystallization 
did not exist, ice would float in water w T hich was be- 
low forty degrees, but w r ould sink when the fluid was 
above that temperature : as the case is, it floats 
under all circumstances. The icy remnants of the 
effects of winter, which the river carries down its 
stream, are visible on its surface till they melt away; 
and the icebergs which are detached from the shores 
of the polar seas, drift along, exposed to the sun and 
air, as well as to the water in which they are im- 
mersed. 

These laws of the effect of temperature on water 
are truly remarkable in their adaptation to the bene- 
ficial course of things at the earth's surface. Water 
contracts by cold ; it thus equalizes the temperature 
of various times and places; but if its contraction 
were continued all the way to the freezing point, it 
would bind a great part of the earth in fetters of ice. 
The contraction then is here replaced by expansion, 
in a manner which but slightly modifies the former 
effects, while it completely obviates the bad conse- 
quences. The further expansion which takes place 
at the point of freezing, still further facilitates the 
rapid removal of the icy chains, in which parts of 
the earth's surface are at certain seasons bound. 

We do not know how far these laws of expansion 

G 



74 



TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS. 



are connected with and depend on more remote and 
general properties of this fluid, or of all fluids. But 
we have no reason to believe that, by whatever 
means they operate, they are not law T s selected from 
among other laws which might exist, as in fact for 
other fluids other laws do exist. And we have all 
the evidence, which the most remarkable furtherance 
of important purposes can give us, that they are se- 
lected, and selected with a beneficial design. 

3. As water becomes ice by cold, it becomes steam 
by heat. In common language, steam is the name 
given to the vapour of hot water; but in fact a va- 
pour or steam rises from water at all temperatures, 
however low, and even from ice. The expansive 
force of this vapour increases rapidly as the heat in- 
creases; so that when we reach the heat of boiling 
water, it operates in a far more striking manner than 
when it is colder; but in all cases the surface of wa- 
ter is covered with an atmosphere of aqueous va- 
pour, the pressure or tension of which is limited by 
the temperature of the water. To each degree of 
pressure in steam there is a constituent temperature 
corresponding. If the surface of water is not pressed 
by vapour with the force thus corresponding to its 
temperature, an immediate evaporation will supply 
the deficiency. We can compare the tension of such 
vapour with that of our common atmosphere ; the 
pressure of the latter is measured by the barometri- 
cal column, about thirty inches of mercury; that of 
watery vapour is equal to one inch of mercury at 
the constituent temperature of 80 degrees, and to one- 
fifth of an inch, at the temperature of 32 degrees. 

Hence, if that part of the atmosphere which con- 
sists of common air were annihilated, there would 
still remain an atmosphere of aqueous vapour, aris- 
ing from the waters 'and moist parts of the earth; 
and in the existing state of things this vapour rises 
in the atmosphere of dry air. Its distribution and 
effects are materially influenced by the vehicle in 
which it is thus carried, as we shall hereafter notice; 



LAWS OF HEAT WATER. 



75 



but at present we have to observe the exceeding 
utility of water in this shape. We remark how suit- 
able and indispensable to the well-being of the crea- 
tion it is, that the fluid should possess the property 
of assuming such a form under such circumstances. 

The moisture which floats in the atmosphere is of 
most essential use to vegetable life.* " The leaves 
of living plants appear to act upon this vapour in its 
elastic form, and to absorb it. Some vegetables in- 
crease in weight from this cause when suspended in 
the atmosphere and unconnected with the soil, as the 
house-leek and the aloe. In very intense heats, and 
when the soil is dry, the life of plants seems to be 
preserved by the absorbent power of their leaves." 
It follows from what has already been said, that, with 
an increasing heat of the atmosphere, an increasing 
quantity of vapour will rise into it, if supplied from 
any quarter. Hence it appears that aqueous vapour 
is most abundant in the atmosphere when it is most 
needed for the purposes of life ; and that when other 
sources of moisture are cut off, this is most copious. 

4. Clouds are produced by aqueous vapour when 
it returns to the state of water. This process is con- 
densation, the reverse of evaporation. When vapour 
exists in the atmosphere, if in any manner the tem- 
perature becomes lower than the constituent tempera- 
ture, requisite for the maintenance of the vapoury 
state, some of the steam will be condensed and will 
become water. It is in this manner that the curl of 
steam from the spout of a boiling tea-kettle becomes 
visible, being cooled down as it rushes to the air. 
The steam condenses into a fine watery powder, 
which is carried about by the little aerial currents. 
Clouds are of the same nature with such curls, the 
condensation being generally produced when air, 
charged with aqueous vapour, is mixed with a colder 
current, or has its temperature diminished in any 
other manner. 



* Loudon, 1219. 



76 



TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS. 



Clouds, while they retain that shape, are of the 
most essential use to vegetable and animal life. They 
moderate the fervour of the sun, in a manner agree- 
able, to a greater or less degree, in all climates, and 
grateful no less to vegetables than to animals. Du- 
hamel says that plants grow more during a week of 
cloudy weather than a month of dry and hot. It 
has been observed that vegetables are far more re- 
freshed by being watered in cloudy than in clear 
weather. In the latter case, probably the supply of 
fluid is too rapidly carried off by evaporation. Clouds 
also moderate the alternations of temperature, by 
checking the radiation from the earth. The coldest 
nights are those which occur under a cloudless win- 
ter sky. 

The uses of clouds, therefore, in this stage of their 
history, are by no means inconsiderable, and seem 
to indicate to us that the laws of their formation 
were constructed with a view to the purposes of or- 
ganized life. 

5. Clouds produce rain. In the formation of a 
cloud the precipitation of moisture probably forms a 
fine watery powder, which remains suspended in the 
air in consequence of the minuteness of its particles: 
but if from any cause the precipitation is collected 
in larger portions, and becomes drops, these descend 
by their weight and produce a shower. 

However rain is formed, it is one of the conse- 
quences of the capacity of evaporation and conden- 
sation which belongs to water, and its uses are the 
result of the laws of those processes. Its uses to 
plants are too obvious and too numerous to be de- 
scribed. It is evident that on its quantity and distri- 
bution depend in a great measure the prosperity of 
the vegetable kingdom : and different climates are 
fitted for different productions, no less by the rela- 
tions of dry weather and showers, than by those of 
hot and cold. 

6. Returning back still further in the changes 
which cold can produce on water, we come to snow 



LAWS OF HEAT WATER. 



77 



and ice : snow being apparently frozen vapour, ag- 
gregated by a confused action of crystalline laws ; 
and ice being water in its fluid state, solidified by the 
same crystalline forces. The impression of these 
agents on the animal feelings is generally unpleasant, 
and we are in the habit of considering them as symp- 
toms of the power of winter to interrupt that state 
of the elements in which they are subservient to life. 
Yet, even in this form, they are not without their 
uses.* " Snow and ice are bad conductors of cold ; 
and when the ground is covered with snow, or the 
surface of the soil or of water is frozen, the roots 
or bulbs of plants beneath are protected by the con- 
gealed water from the influence of the atmosphere, 
the temperature of which, in northern winters, is 
usually very much below the freezing point ; and 
this water becomes the first nourishment of the plant 
in early spring. The expansion of water during its 
congelation, at which time its volume increases one- 
twelfth, and its contraction in bulk during a thaw, 
tend to pulverize the soil, to separate its parts from 
each other, and to make it more permeable to the 
influence of the air." In consequence of the same 
slowness in the conduction of heat which snow thus 
possesses, the arctic traveller finds his bed of snow 
of no intolerable coldness; the Esquimaux is shel- 
tered from the inclemency of the season in his snow 
hut, and travels rapidly and agreeably over the 
frozen surface of the sea. The uses of those ar- 
rangements, which at first appear productive only 
of pain and inconvenience, are well suited to give 
confidence and hope to our researches for such use- 
fulness in every part of the creation. They have 
thus a peculiar value in adding connexion and uni- 
versality to our perception of beneficial design. 

7. There is a peculiar circumstance still to be 
noticed in the changes from ice to water and from 
water to steam. These changes take place at a 



* Loudon, 1214. 
g2 



78 



TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS, 



particular and invariable degree of heat; yet they 
do not take place suddenly when we increase the 
heat to this degree. This is a very curious arrange- 
ment. The temperature makes a stand, as it were, 
at the point where thaw, and where boiling take 
place. It is necessary to apply a considerable quan- 
tity of heat to produce these effects ; all which heat 
disappears, or becomes latent, as it is called. We 
cannot raise the temperature of a thawing mass of 
ice till we have thawed the whole. We cannot raise 
the temperature of boiling water, or of steam rising 
from it, till we have converted all the water into 
steam. Any heat that we apply while these changes 
are going on is absorbed in producing the changes. 

The consequences of this property of latent heat 
are very important. It is on this account that the 
changes now spoken of necessarily occupy a consi- 
derable time. Each part in succession must have a 
proper degree of heat applied to it. If it were 
otherwise, thaw and evaporation must be instan- 
taneous : at the first touch of warmth, all the snow 
w r hich lies on the roofs of our houses would descend 
like a waterspout into the streets : all that which 
rests on the ground would rush like an inundation 
into the water courses. The hut of the Esquimaux 
would vanish like a house in a pantomime : the icy 
floor of the river would be gone without giving any 
warning to the skaiter or the traveller : and when, in 
heating our water, we reached the boiling point, the 
whole fluid would " flash into steam," (to use the ex- 
pression of engineers,) and dissipate itself in the at- 
mosphere, or settle in dew on the neighbouring 
objects. 

It is obviously necessary for the purposes of hu- 
man life, that these changes should be of a more 
gradual and manageable kind than such as we have 
now described. Yet this gradual progress of freezing 
and thawing, of evaporation and condensation, is 
produced, so far as we can discover, by a particular 
contrivance. Like the freezing of water from the 



LAWS OF HEAT WATER. 



79 



top, or the floating of ice, the moderation of the rate 
of these changes seems to be the result of a violation 
of a law: that is, the simple rule regarding the effects 
of change of temperature, which at first sight appears 
to be the law, and w T hich, from its simplicity, would 
seem to us the most obvious law r s for these as well 
as other cases, is modified at certain critical points, 
so as to produce these advantageous effects: — why 
may we not say in order to produce such effects ? 

8. Another office of water which it discharges by 
means of its relations to heat, is that of supplying 
our springs. There can be no doubt that the old hy- 
potheses which represent springs as drawing their 
supplies from large subterranean reservoirs of w r a- 
ter, or from the sea by a process of subterraneous 
filtration, are erroneous and untenable. The quantity 
of evaporation from w r ater and from w 7 et ground is 
found to be amply sufficient to supply the requisite 
drain. Mr. Dalton calculated* that the quantity of 
rain which falls in England is thirty-six inches a year. 
Of this he reckoned that thirteen inches flow off to 
the sea by the rivers, and that the remaining twenty- 
three inches are raised again from the ground by 
evaporation. The thirteen inches of water are of 
course supplied by evaporation from the sea, and 
are carried back to the land through the atmo- 
sphere. Vapour is perpetually rising from the ocean, 
and is condensed in the hills and high lands, and 
through their pores and crevices descends, till it is 
deflected, collected, and conducted out to the bay, 
by some stratum or channel which is watertight. 
The condensation which takes place in the higher 
parts of the country, may easily be recognised in the 
mists and rains which are the frequent occupants of 
such regions. The coldness of the atmosphere and 
other causes precipitate the moisture in clouds and 
showers, and in the former as well as in the latter 
shape, it is condensed and absorbed by the cool 



* Manchester Memoirs, v. 35T. 



80 



TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS. 



ground. Thus a perpetual and compound circulation 
of the waters is kept up ; a narrower circle between 
the evaporation and precipitation of the land itself, 
the rivers and streams only occasionally and par- 
tially forming a portion of the circuit ; and a wider 
interchange between the sea and the lands which 
feed the springs, the water ascending perpetually by 
a thousand currents through the air, and descending 
by the gradually converging branches of the rivers, 
till it is again returned into the great reservoir of the 
ocean. 

In every country, these two portions of the aque- 
ous circulation have their regular, and nearly con- 
stant, proportion. In this kingdom the relative quan- 
tities are, as we have said, twenty-three and thirteen. 
A due distribution of these circulating fluids in each 
country appears to be necessary to its organic 
healthy to the habits of vegetables, and of man. We 
have every reason to believe that it is kept up from 
year to year as steadily as the circulation of the 
blood in the veins and arteries of man. It is main- 
tained by a machinery very different, indeed, from 
that of the human system, but apparently as well, 
and, therefore, we may say as clearly, as that, adapt- 
ed to its purposes. 

By this machinery, we have a connexion esta- 
blished between the atmospheric changes of re- 
mote countries. Rains in England are often intro- 
duced by a south-east wind. " Vapour brought to 
us by such a wind, must have been generated in 
countries to the south and east of our island. It is, 
therefore, probably, in the extensive valleys watered 
by the Meuse, the Moselle, and the Rhine, if not 
from the more distant Elbe, with the Oder and the 
Weser, that the water rises, in the midst of sunshine, 
which is soon afterwards to form our clouds, and 
pour down our thunder-showers." "Drought and 
sunshine in one part of Europe may be as necessary 
to the production of a wet season in another, as it is 
on the great scale of the continents of Africa and 



LAWS OF HEAT AIR. 



81 



South America; where the plains, during one half 
the year, are burnt up, to feed the springs of the 
mountain; which in their turn contribute to inundate 
the fertile valleys and prepare them for a luxuriant 
vegetation."* The properties of water which re- 
gard heat make one vast watering-engine of the 
atmosphere. 



CHAPTER X, 

The Laws of Heat with respect to Air* 

We have seen in the preceding chapter how many 
and how important are the offices discharged by the 
aqueous part of the atmosphere, The aqueous part 
is, however* a very small part only; it may vary , 
perhaps, from less than 1-I00dth to nearly as much 
as l-20th in weight, of the whole aerial ocean. We 
have to offer some considerations with regard to the 
remainder of the mass. 

1. In the first place we may observe that the aerial 
atmosphere is necessary as a vehicle for the aqueous 
vapour. Salutary as is the operation of this last ele- 
ment to the whole organized creation, it is a sub- 
stance which would not have answered its purposes 
if it had been administered pure. It requires to be 
diluted and associated with dry air, to make it ser- 
viceable. A little consideration will show this. 

We can suppose the earth with no atmosphere ex- 
cept the vapour which arises from its watery parts : 
and if we suppose also the equatorial parts of the 
globe to be hot, and the polar parts cold, we may 
easily see what would be the consequence. The 
waters at the equator, and near the equator, would 
produce steam of greater elasticity, rarity, and tem- 

* Howard on the climate of London, vol. ii. pp. 216, 217. 



82 



TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS. 



perature, than that which occupies the regions fur- 
ther polewards ; and such steam, as it came in con- 
tact with the colder vapour of a higher latitude, 
would be precipitated into the form of water, Hence 
there would be a perpetual current of steam from 
the equatorial parts towards each pole, which would 
be condensed, w T ould fall to the surface, and flow- 
back to the equator in the form of fluid. We should 
have a circulation which might be regarded as a 
species of regulated distillation.* On a globe so 
constituted, the sky of the equatorial zone would be 
perpetually cloudless ; but in all other latitudes we 
should have an uninterrupted shroud of clouds, fogs, 
rains, and, near the poles, a continual fall of snow. 
This would be balanced by a constant flow of the 
currents of the ocean from each pole towards the 
equator. We should have an excessive circulation 
of moisture, but no sunshine, and probably only mi- 
nute changes in the intensity and appearances of 
one eternal drizzle or shower. 

It is plain that this state of things would but ill an- 
swer the ends of vegetable and animal life : so that 
even if the lungs of animals and the leaves of plants 
were so constructed as to breathe steam instead of 
air, an atmosphere of unmixed steam would deprive 
those creatures of most of the other external condi- 
tions of their well being. 

The real state of things which we enjoy, the steam 
being mixed in our breath and in our sky in a mode- 
rate quantity, gives rise to results very different from 
those which have been described. The machinery by 
w 7 hich these results are produced is not a little curious. 
It is in fact the machinery of the weather, and there- 
fore the reader will not be surprised to find it both 
complex and apparently uncertain in its working. 
At the same time some of the general principles 
which govern it seem now to be pretty well made 
out, and they offer no small evidence of beneficent 
arrangement. 

* DanielL Meteor. Ess. p. 56. 



LAWS OF HEAT AIR. 



83 



Besides our atmosphere of aqueous vapour, we 
have another and far larger atmosphere of common 
air ; a permanently elastic fluid, that is, one which is 
not condensed into a liquid form by pressure or cold, 
such as it is exposed to in the order of natural events. 
The pressure of the dry air is about twenty-nine and 
a half inches of mercury ; that of the watery vapour, 
perhaps, half an inch. Now if we had the earth 
quite dry, and covered with an atmosphere of dry 
air, we can trace in a great measure what would be 
the results, supposing still the equatorial zone to be 
hot, and the temperature of the surface to decrease 
perpetually as we advance into higher latitudes. 
The air at the equator would be rarefied by the heat, 
and would be perpetually displaced below by the 
denser portions which belonged to cooler latitudes. 
We should have a current of air from the equator to 
the poles in the higher regions of the atmosphere, 
and at the surface a returning current setting to- 
wards the equator to fill up the void so created. 
Such aerial currents, combined with the rotatory 
motion of the earth, would produce oblique winds ; 
and we have in fact instances of winds so produced, 
in the trade winds, which between the tropics blow ? 
constantly from the quarters between east and north, 
and are, we know, balanced by opposite currents in 
higher regions. The effect of a heated surface of 
land would be the same as that of the heated zone of 
the equator, and would attract to it a sea breeze 
during the day time, a phenomenon, as w T e also 
know, of perpetual occurrence. 

Now a mass of dry air of such a character as this, 
is by far the dominant part of our atmosphere ; and 
hence carries w 7 ith it in its motions the thinner and 
smaller eddies of aqueous vapour. The latter fluid 
may be considered as permeating and moving in the 
interstices of the former, as a spring of water flows 
through a sand rock.* The lower current of air is, 



* Daniell. p. 129. 



84 



TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS. 



as has been said, directed towards the equator, and 
hence it resists the motion of the steam, the tendency 
of which is in the opposite direction ; and prevents 
or much retards that continual flow of hot vapour 
into colder regions, by which a constant precipita- 
tion would take place in the latter situations. 

If, in this state of things, the flow of the current 
of air, which blows from any colder place into a 
warmer region, be retarded or stopped, the aqueous 
vapours will now be able to make their way to the 
colder point, w 7 here they will be precipitated in clouds 
or showers. 

Thus, in the lower part of the atmosphere, there 
are tendencies to a current of air in one direction, 
and a current of vapour in the opposite ; and these 
tendencies exist in the average weather of places 
situated at a moderate distance from the equator. 
The air tends from the colder to the warmer parts, 
the vapour from the warmer to the colder. 

The various distribution of land and sea, and many 
other causes make these currents far from simple. 
But in general the air current predominates, and 
keeps the skies clear and the moisture dissolved. 
Occasional and irregular occurrences disturb this 
predominance ; the moisture is then precipitated, the 
skies are clouded, and the clouds may descend in co- 
pious rains. 

These alternations of fair weather and showers, 
appear to be much more favourable to vegetable and 
animal life than any uniform course of weather could 
have been. To produce this variety, we have two 
antagonist forces, by the struggle of which such 
changes occur. Steam and air, two transparent and 
elastic fluids, expansible by heat, are in many re- 
spects and properties very like each other. Yet, the 
same heat similarly applied to the globe, produces 
at the surface currents of these fluids, tending in op- 
posite directions. And these currents mix and ba- 
lance, conspire and interfere, so that our trees and 
fields have alternately water and sunshine ; our fruits 



LAWS OF HEAT AIR. 



85 



and grain are successively developed and matured. 
Why should such laws of heat and elastic fluids so 
obtain, and be so combined ? Is it not in order that 
they may be fit for such offices 1 There is here an 
arrangement, which no chance could have produced. 
The details of this apparatus may be beyond our 
power of tracing ; its springs maybe out of our sight. 
Such circumstances do not make it the less a curious 
and beautiful contrivance : they need not prevent our 
recognizing the skill and benevolence which we can 
discover. 

2- But we have not yet done with the machinery 
of the weather. In ascending from the earth's sur- 
face through the atmosphere, we find a remarkable 
difference in the heat and in the pressure of the air. 
It becomes much colder, and much lighter; men's 
feelings tell them this ; and the thermometer and ba- 
rometer confirm these indications. And here again 
we find something to remark. 

In both the simple atmospheres of which we have 
spoken, the one of air and the one of steam, the pro- 
perty which we have mentioned must exist. In each 
of them, both the temperature and the tension would 
diminish in ascending. But they would diminish at 
-very different rates. The temperature, for instance, 
would decrease much' more rapidly for the same 
height in dry air than in steam. If we begin with a 
temperature of 80 degrees at the surface, on ascend- 
ing five thousand feet the steam is still 76^ degrees, 
the air is only 844- degrees : at ten thousand feet, 
the steam is 73 degrees, the air 4B| degrees: at 
fifteen thousand feet, steam is at 70 degrees, air has 
fallen below the freezing point to 31-J- degrees. 
Hence these two atmospheres cannot exist together 
without modifying one another: one must heat or cool 
the other, so that the coincident parts may be of the 
same temperature. This accordingly does take 
place, and this effect influences very greatly the con- 
stitution of the atmosphere. For the most part, the 
steam is compelled to accommodate itself to the tem- 

H 



86 



TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS. 



perature of the air, the latter being of much the 
greater bulk. But if the upper parts of the aqueous 
vapour be cooled down to the temperature of the air, 
they will not by any means exert on the lower parts 
of the same vapour so great a pressure as the gaseous 
form of these could bear. Hence, there will be a de- 
ficiency of moisture in the lower part of the atmo- 
sphere, and if water exist there, it will rise by eva- 
poration, the surface feeling an insufficient tension ; 
and there wall thus be a fresh supply of vapour up- 
wards. As, however, the upper regions already con- 
tain as much as their temperature will support in 
the state of gas, a precipitation will now take place, 
and the fluid thus formed will descend till it arrives 
in a lower region, where the tension and tempera- 
ture are again adapted to its evaporation. 

Thus, we can have no equilibrium in such an at- 
mosphere, but a perpetual circulation of vapour be- 
tween its upper and lower parts. The currents of 
air which move about in different directions, at dif- 
ferent altitudes, will be differently charged with 
moisture, and as they touch and mingle, lines of 
cloud are formed, which grow and join, and are 
spread out in floors, or rolled together in piles. These, 
again, by an additional accession of humidity, are 
formed into drops, and descend in showers into the 
lower regions, and if not evaporated in their fall, 
reach the surface of the earth. 

The varying occurrences thus produced, tend to 
multiply and extend their own variety. The ascend- 
ing streams of vapour carry with them that latent 
heat belonging to their gaseous state, w r hich, when 
they are condensed, they give out as sensible heat. 
They thus raise the temperature of the upper regions 
of air, and occasion changes in the pressure and 
motion of its currents. The clouds, again, by shad- 
ing the surface of the earth from the sun, diminish 
the evaporation by which their own substance is 
supplied, and the heating effects by which currents 
are caused. Even the mere mechanical effects of 



LAWS OF HEAT AIR. 



87 



the currents of fluid on the distribution of its own 
pressure, and the dynamical conditions of its motion, 
are in a high degree abstruse in their principles and 
complex in their results. It need not be wondered, 
therefore, if the study of this subject is very difficult 
and entangled, and our knowledge, after all, very 
imperfect. 

In the middle of all this apparent confusion, how- 
ever, w r e can see much that we can understand. 
And, among other things, we may notice some of 
the consequences of the difference of the laws of 
temperature followed by steam and by air in going 
upwards. One important result is that the atmo- 
sphere is much drier, near the surface, than it would 
have been if the laws of density and temperature 
had been the same for both gases. If this had been 
so, the air would always have been saturated with 
vapour. It w r ould have contained as much as the 
existing temperature could support, and the slightest 
cooling of any object would have covered it with a 
watery film like dew. As it is, the air contains 
much less than its full quantity of vapour : we may 
often cool an object ten, twenty, or thirty degrees 
without obtaining a deposition of water upon it, or 
reaching the dew-point, as it is called. To have had 
such a dripping state of the atmosphere as the for- 
mer arrangement would have produced, would have 
been inconvenient, and so far as we can judge, un- 
suited to vegetables as well as animals. No evapo- 
ration from the surface of either could have taken 
place under such conditions. 

The sizes and forms of clouds appear to depend 
on the same circumstance, of the air not being satu- 
rated with moisture. And it is seemingly much 
better that clouds should be comparatively small and 
well defined, as they are, than that they should fill 
vast depths of the atmosphere with a thin mist, which 
would have been the consequence of the imaginary 
condition of things just mentioned. 

Here then we have another remarkable exhibition 



88 



TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS. 



of two laws, in two nearly similar gaseous fluids, 
producing effects alike in kind, but different in de- 
gree, and by the play of their difference giving rise 
to a new set of results, peculiar in their nature and 
beneficial in their tendency. The form of the laws 
of air and of steam with regard to heat might,, so far 
as we can see. have been more similar, or more dis- 
similar, than it now is : the rate of each law might 
have had a different amount from its present one. so 
as quite to alter the relation of the two. By the laws 
having such forms and such rates as they have, ef- 
fects are produced, some of which we can distinctly 
perceive to be beneficial. Perhaps most persons will 
feel a strong persuasion, that if we understood the 
operation of these laws more distinctly, we should 
see still more clearly the beneficial tendency of these 
effects, and should probably discover others, at pre- 
sent concealed in the apparent perplexity of the sub- 
ject. 

3. From what has been said, we may see, in a 
general way, both the causes and the effects of icinds, 
They arise from any disturbance by temperature, 
motion, pressure, &c. of the equilibrium of the atmo- 
sphere, and are the efforts of nature to restore the 
balance. Their office in the economy of nature is to 
carry heat and moisture from one tract to another, 
and they are the great agents in the distribution of 
temperature and the changes of weather. Other 
purposes might easily be ascribed to them in the 
business of the vegetable and animal kingdoms, and 
in the arts of human life, of which we shall not here 
treat. That character in which we now consider 
them, that of the machinery of atmospheric changes, 
and thus, immediately or remotely, the instruments 
of atmospheric influences, cannot well be refused 
them by any person. 

4. There is still one reflexion which ought not to 
be omitted. All the changes of the weather, even 
the most violent tempests and torrents of rain, may 
be considered as oscillations about the mean or 



LAWS OF HEAT AIR. 89 

average condition belonging to each place. All 
these oscillations are limited and transient; the storm 
spends its fury, the inundation passes off, the sky 
clears, the calmer course of nature succeeds. In 
the forces which produce this derangement, there is 
a provision for making it short and moderate. The 
oscillation stops of itself, like the rolling of a ship, 
when no longer impelled by the wind. Now, why 
should this be so ? Why should the oscillations, pro- 
duced by the conflict of so many laws, seemingly 
quite unconnected with each other, be of this con- 
verging and subsiding character ? Would it be so 
under all arrangements I Is it a matter of mecha- 
nical necessity that disturbance must end in the re- 
storation of the medium condition ? By no means. 
There may be an utter subversion of the equilibrium. 
The ship may roll too far, and may capsize. The 
oscillations may go on, becoming larger and larger, 
till all trace of the original condition is lost ; till new 
forces of inequality and disturbance are brought into 
play: and disorder and irregularity may succeed, 
without apparent limit or check in its own nature, 
like the spread of a conflagration in a city. This is 
a possibility in any combination of mechanical 
forces ; why does it not happen in the one now be- 
fore us ? By what good fortune are the powers of 
heat, of water, of steam, of air, the effects of the 
earth's annual and diurnal motions, and probably 
ether causes, so adjusted, that through all their 
struggles the elemental world goes on, upon the 
whole, so quietly and steadily? Why is the whole 
fabric of the weather never utterly deranged, its 
balance lost irrecoverably ? Why is there not an 
eternal conflict, such as the poets imagine to take 
place in their chaos ? 

" For Hot, Cold, Moist, and Dry, four champions fierce, 

Strive here for mastery, and to battle bring 

Their embryon atoms : — 

to whom these most adhere, 
He rules a moment : Chaos umpire sits, 
And by decision more embroils the fray." — Par* r 
h2 

***t. b. a. 



90 



TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS, 



A state of things something like that which Milton 
here seems to have imagined, is, so far as we know, 
not mechanically impossible. It might have con- 
tinued to obtain, if Hot and Cold, and Moist and Dry 
had not been compelled to " run into their places." 
It will be hereafter seen, that in the comparatively 
simple problem of the solar system, a number of 
very peculiar adjustments were requisite, in order 
that the system might retain a permanent form, in 
order that its motions might have their cycles, its 
perturbations their limits and period. The problem 
of the continuation of such laws and materials as 
enter into the constitution of the atmosphere, is one 
manifestly of much greater complexity, and indeed 
to us probably of insurmountable difficulty as a me- 
chanical problem. But all that investigation and 
analogy teach us, tends to show that it will resemble 
the other problem in the nature of its result ; and that 
certain relations of its data, and of the laws of its 
elements, are necessary requisites, for securing the 
stability of its mean condition, and for giving a small 
and periodical character to its deviations from such 
a condition. 

It would then be probable, from this reflection 
alone, that in determining the quantity and the law 
and intensity of the forces, of earth, water, air, and 
heat, the same regard has been shown to the perma- 
nency and stability of the terrestrial system, which 
may be traced in the adjustment of the masses, dis- 
tances, positions, and motions of the bodies of the 
celestial machine. 

This permanency appears to be, of itself, a suita- 
ble object of contrivance. The purpose for which 
the world was made could be answered only by its 
being preserved. But it has appeared, from the pre- 
ceding part of this and the former chapter, that this 
permanence is a permanence of a state of things 
adapted by the most remarkable and multiplied com- 
binations to the well-being of man, of animals, of 
vegetables. The adjustments and conditions there- 



ELECTRICITY. 



91 



fore, beyond the reach of our investigation as they 
are, by which its permanence is secured, must be 
conceived as fitted to add, in each of the instances 
above adduced, to the admiration which the several 
manifestations of Intelligent Beneficence are calcu- 
lated to excite. 



CHAPTER XL 

The Laws of Electricity. 

Electricity undoubtedly exists in the atmosphere 
in most states of the air ; but we know very imper- 
fectly the laws of this agent, and are still more igno- 
rant of its atmospheric operation. The present state 
of science does not therefore enable us to perceive 
those adaptations of its laws to its uses, which we 
can discover in those cases where the laws and the 
uses are both of them more apparent. 

We can, however, easily make out that electrical 
agency plays a very considerable part among the 
clouds, in their usual conditions and changes. This 
may be easily shown by Franklin's experiment of the 
electrical kite. The clouds are sometimes positively, 
sometimes negatively, charged, and the rain which 
descends from them offers also indications of one or 
other kind of electricity. The changes of wind and 
alterations of the form of the clouds are generally 
accompanied with changes in these electrical indica- 
tions. Every one knows that a thunder-cloud is 
strongly charged with the electric fluid, (if it be a 
fluid,) and that the stroke of the lightning is an elec- 
trical discharge. We may add that it appears, by 
recent experiments, that a transfer of electricity be- 
tween plants and the atmosphere is perpetually go- 
ing on during the process of vegetation. 



02 



TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS. 



We cannot trace very exactly the precise circum- 
stances, in the occurrences of the atmospheric re- 
gions, which depend on the influence of the laws of 
electricity: but we are tolerably certain, from what 
has been already noticed, that if these law 7 s did not 
exist, or were very different from what they now are, 
the action of the clouds and winds, and the course of 
vegetation, would also be other than it now is. 

It is therefore at any rate very probable that elec- 
tricity has its appointed and important purposes in 
the economy of the atmosphere. And this being so, 
we may see a use in the thunder-storm and the stroke 
of the lightning. These violent events are, with re- 
gard to the electricity of the atmosphere, what winds 
are with regard to heat and moisture. They restore 
the equilibrium where it has been dissolved, and 
carry the fluid from places where it is superfluous, 
to others where it is deficient. 

We are so constituted, however, that these crises 
impress almost every one with a feeling of awe. The 
deep lowering gloom of the thunder-cloud, the over- 
whelming burst of the explosion, the flash from which 
the steadiest eye shrinks, and the irresistible arrow 
of the lightning which no earthly substance can with- 
stand, speak of something fearful, even independently 
of the personal danger which they may whisper. 
They convey, far more than any other appearance 
does, the idea of a superior and mighty power, mani- 
festing displeasure and threatening punishment. Yet 
we find that this is not the language which they speak 
to the physical inquirer : he sees these formidable 
symptoms only as the means or the consequences of 
good. What office the thunderbolt and the whirlwind 
may have in the moral world, we cannot here dis- 
cuss : but certainly he must speculate as far beyond 
the limits of philosophy as of piety, who pretends to 
have learnt that there their work has more of evil 
than of good. In the natural world, these apparently 
destructive agents are, like all the other movements 



MAGNETISM. 



93 



and appearances of the atmosphere, parts of a great 
scheme, of which every discoverable purpose is 
marked with beneficence as well as wisdom. 



CHAPTER XII. 

The Laws of Magnetism. 

Magnetism has no very obvious or apparently ex- 
tensive office in the mechanism of the atmosphere 
and the earth : but the mention of it may be intro- 
duced, because its ascertained relations to the other 
powers which exist in the system are well suited to 
show us the connexion subsisting throughout the uni- 
verse, and to check the suspicion, if any such should 
arise, that any law of nature is without its use. The 
parts of creation when these uses are most obscure, 
are precisely those parts when the laws themselves 
are least known. 

When indeed we consider the vast service of 
which magnetism is to man, by supplying him with 
that invaluable instrument the mariners' compass, 
many persons will require no further evidence of this 
property being introduced into the frame of things 
with a worthy purpose. As however, we have hith- 
erto excluded use in the arts from our line of argu- 
ment, we shall not here make an exception in favour 
of navigation, and what we shall observe belongs to 
another view of the subject. 

Magnetism has been discovered in modern times 
to have so close a connexion with galvanism, that 
they may be said to be almost different aspects of 
the same agent. All the phenomena which we can 
produce with magnets, we can imitate with coils of 
galvanic wire. That galvanism exists in the earth, 
we need no proof. Electricity, which appears to be 
only galvanism in equilibrium, is there in abundance ; 



94 



TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS. 



and recently, Mr. Fox* has shown by experiment 
that metalliferous veins, as they lie in the earth, ex- 
ercise a galvanic influence on each other. Some- 
thing of this kind might have been anticipated ; for 
masses of metal in contact, if they differ in tempera- 
ture or other circumstances, are known to produce 
a galvanic current. Hence we have undoubtedly 
streams of galvanic influence moving along in the 
earth. Whether or not such causes as these pro- 
duce the directive power of the magnetic needle, we 
cannot here pretend to decide ; they can hardly fail 
to affect it The Aurora Borealis too, probably an 
electrical phenomenon, is said, under particular cir- 
cumstances, to agitate the magnetic needle. It is 
not surprising, therefore, that, if electricity have an 
important office in the atmosphere, magnetism should 
exist in the earth. It seems likely, that the magnetic 
properties of the earth may be collateral results of 
the existence of the same cause by which electrical 
agency operates ; an agency which, as we have al- 
ready seen, has important offices in the processes of 
vegetable life. And thus magnetism belongs to the 
same system of beneficial contrivance to which elec- 
tricity has been already traced. 

We see, however, on this subject very dimly and 
a very small way. It can hardly be doubted that 
magnetism has other functions than those we have 
noticed. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

The Properties of Light with regard to Vegetation. 

The illuminating power of light will come under 
our consideration hereafter. Its agency, with regard 
to organic life, is too important not to be noticed, 

* Phil. Trans. 1821. 



MAGNETISM. 



95 



though this must be done briefly. Light appears to 
be as necessary to the health of plants as air or mois- 
ture. A plant may, indeed, grow without it, but it 
does not appear that a species could be so continued. 
Under such a privation, the parts which are usually 
green, assume a white colour, as is the case with 
vegetables grown in a cellar, or protected by a cover- 
ing for the sake of producing this very effect; thus, 
celery, is in this manner blanched, or etiolated. 

The part of the process of vegetable life for which 
light is especially essential, appears to be the func- 
tions of the leaves ; these are affected by this agent 
in a very remarkable manner. The moisture which 
plants imbibe is, by their vital energies, carried to 
their leaves ; and is then brought in contact with the 
atmosphere, which, besides other ingredients, con- 
tains, in general, a portion of carbonic acid. So long 
as light is present, the leaf decomposes the carbonic 
acid, appropriates the carbon to the formation of its 
own proper juices, and returns the disengaged oxy- 
gen into the atmosphere ; thus restoring the atmos- 
pheric air to a condition in which it is more fitted 
than it w r as before for the support of animal life. The 
plant thus prepares the support of life for other crea- 
tures at the same time that it absorbs its own. The 
greenness of those members which affect that colour, 
and the disengagement of oxygen, are the indica- 
tions that its vital powers are in healthful action : as 
soon as we remove light from the plant, these indica- 
tions cease : it has no longer power to imbibe carbon 
and disengage oxygen, but on the contrary, it gives 
back some of the carbon already obtained, and robs 
the atmosphere of oxygen for the purpose of recon- 
verting this into carbonic acid. 

It cannot well be conceived that such effects of 
light on vegetables, as we have described, should 
occur, if that agent, of whatever nature it is, and 
those organs, had not been adapted to each other. 
But the subject is here introduced that the reader 
may the more readily receive the conviction of com- 



96 



TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS. 



bining purpose which must arise, on finding that an 
agent, possessing these very peculiar chemical pro- 
perties, is employed to produce also those effects of 
illumination, vision, &c, which form the most ob- 
vious portion of the properties of light. 



CHAPTER XIV, 
Sound. 

Besides the function- which air discharges as the 
great agent in the changes of meteorology and vege- 
tation, it has another office, also of great and exten- 
sive importance, as the vehicle of sound. 

1. The communication of sound through the air 
takes place by means of a process altogether differ- 
ent from anything of which we have yet spoken : 
namely, by the propagation of minute vibrations of 
the particles from one part of the fluid mass to ano- 
ther, without any local motion of the fluid itself. 

Perhaps we may most distinctly conceive the kind 
of effect here spoken of, by comparing it to the mo- 
tion produced by the wind in a field of standing 
corn ; grassy waves travel visibly over the field, in 
the direction in which the wind blows, but this ap- 
pearance of an object moving is delusive. The only 
real motion is that of the ears of grain, of which 
each goes and returns, as the stalk stoops and reco- 
vers itself. This motion affects successively a line 
of ears in the direction of the wind, and affects si- 
multaneously all those ears of which the elevation or 
depression forms one visible wave. The elevations 
and depressions are propagated in a constant direc- 
tion, while the parts with which the space is filled 
only vibrate to and fro. Of exactly such a nature is 
the propagation of sound through the air. The par- 
ticles of air go and return through very minute 



SOUND. 



97 



spaces, arid this vibratory motion runs through the 
atmosphere from the sounding body to the ear. 
Waves, not of elevation and depression, but of con- 
densation and rarefaction, are transmitted ; and the 
sound thus becomes an object of sense to the organ. 

Another familiar instance of the propagation of 
vibrations we have in the circles on the surface of 
smooth water, which diverge from the point where 
it is touched by a small object, as a drop of rain. In 
the beginning of a shower, for instance, when the 
drops come distinct, though frequent, we may see 
each drop giving rise to a ring, formed of two or 
three close concentric circles, which grow and 
spread, leaving the interior of the circles smooth, 
and gradually reaching parts of the surface more 
and more distant from their origin. In this instance, 
it is clearly not a portion of the water which flows 
onwards ; but the disturbance, the rise and fall of the 
surface which makes the ring-formed waves, passes 
into wider and wider circles, and thus the undulation 
is transmitted from its starting-place, to points in all 
directions on the surface of the fluid. 

The diffusion of these ring-formed undulations 
from their centre resembles the diffusion of a sound 
from the place where it is produced to the points 
where it is heard. The disturbance, or vibration, by 
which it is conveyed, travels at the same rate in all 
directions, and the waves which are propagated are 
hence of a circular form. They differ, however, 
from those on the surface of water ; for sound is 
communicated upwards and downwards, and in all 
intermediate directions, as well as horizontally; 
hence the waves of sound are spherical, the point 
where the sound is produced being the centre of the 
sphere. 

This diffusion of vibrations in spherical shells of 
successive condensation and rarefaction, will easily 
be seen to be different from any local motion of the 
air, as wind, and to be independent of that. The cir- 
cles on the surface of water will spread on a river 



98 



TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS. 



which is flowing, provided it be smooth, as well as 
on a standing canal. 

Not only are such undulations propagated almost 
undisturbed by any local motion of the fluid in which 
they take place, but also, many may be propagated 
in the same fluid at the same time, without disturbing 
each other. We may see this effect on water. When 
several drops fall near each other, the circles which 
they produce cross each other, without either of 
them being lost, and the separate courses of the 
rings may still be traced. 

All these consequences, both in water, in air, and 
in any other fluid, can be very exactly investigated 
upon mechanical principles, and the greater part of 
the phenomena can thus be shown to result from the 
properties of the fluids. 

There are several remarkable circumstances in 
the way in which air answers its purpose as the ve- 
hicle of sound, of which we will now point out a few. 

2. The loudness of sound is such as is convenient 
for common purposes. The organs of speech can, in 
the present constitution of the air, produce, without 
fatigue, such a tone of voice as can be heard with 
distinctness and with comfort. That any great alter- 
ation in this element might be incommodious, we 
may judge from the difficulties to which persons are 
subject who are dull of hearing, and from the dis- 
agreeable effects of a voice much louder than usual, 
or so low as to be indistinct. Sounds produced by 
the human organs, with other kinds of air, are very 
different from those in our common air. If a man 
inhale a quantity of hydrogen gas, and then speak, 
his voice is scarcely audible. 

The loudness of sounds become smaller in propor- 
tion as they come from a greater distance. This 
enables us to judge of the distance of objects, in 
some degree at least, by the sounds which proceed 
from them. Moreover, it is found that we can judge 
of the position of objects by the ear: and this judg- 
ment seems to be formed by comparing the loudness 



SOUND. 



99 



of the impression of the same sound on the two ears 
and two sides of the head.* 

The loudness of sounds appears to depend on the 
extent of vibration of the particles of air, and this is 
determined by the vibrations of the sounding body. 

3. The pitch, or the differences of acute and grave, 
in sounds, form another important property, and one 
which fits them for a great part of their purposes. 
By the succession of different notes, we have all the 
results of melody and harmony in musical sound ; 
and of intonation and -modulation of the voice, of 
accent, cadence, emphasis, expression, passion, in 
speech. The song of birds, which is one of their 
principal modes of communication, depends chiefly 
for its distinctions and its significance upon the com- 
binations of acute and grave. 

These differences are produced by the different 
rapidity of vibration of the particles of air. The 
gravest sound has about eighty vibrations in a second, 
the most acute about one thousand. Between these 
limits each sound has a musical character, and from 
the different relations of the number of vibrations in 
a second arise all the differences of musical inter- 
vals, concords and discords. 

4. The quality of sounds is another of their differ- 
ences. This is the name given to the difference of 
notes of the same pitch, that is the same note as to 
acute and grave, when produced by different instru- 
ments. If a flute and a violin be in unison, the notes 
are still quite different sounds. It is this kind of dif- 
ference which distinguishes the voice of one man 
from that of another : and it is manifestly therefore 
one of great consequence; since it connects the 
voice with the particular person, and is almost ne- 
cessary in order that language may be a medium of 
intercourse between men. 

5. The articulate character of sounds is for us one 
of the most important arrangements which exist in 



* Mr. Goughin Manch. Mem. vol. v. 



100 



TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS. 



the world ; for it is by this that they become the in- 
terpreters of thought, will and feeling, the means 
by which a person can convey his wants, his in- 
structions, his promises, his kindness, to others; 
by which one man can regulate the actions and in- 
fluence the convictions and judgments of another. 
It is in virtue of the possibility of shaping air into 
words, that the imperceptible vibrations which a 
man produces in the atmosphere, become some of 
his most important actions; the foundations of the 
highest moral and social relations ; and the condi- 
tion and instrument of all the advancement and im- 
provement of which he is susceptible. 

It appears that the differences of articulate sound 
arise from the different form of the cavity through 
which the sound is made to proceed immediately 
after being produced. In the human voice the sound 
is produced in the larynx, and modified by the cavity 
of the mouth, and the various organs which surround 
this cavity. The laws by which articulate sounds are 
thus produced have not yet been fully developed, 
but appear to be in the progress of being so. 

The properties of sounds which have been men- 
tioned, differences of loudness, of pitch, of quality, 
and articulation, appear to be all requisite in order 
that sound shall answer its purposes in the economy 
of animal and of human life. And how was the air 
made capable of conveying these four differences, at 
the same time that the organs were made capable of 
producing them ? Surely by a most refined and skil- 
ful adaptation, applied with a most comprehensive 
design. 

6. Again ; is it by chance that the air and the ear 
exist together ? Did the air produce the organization 
of the ear ? or the ear, independently organized, an- 
ticipate the constitution of the atmosphere? Or is 
not the only intelligible account of the matter, this, 
that one was made for the other : that there is a mu- 
tual adaptation produced by an Intelligence which 
was acquainted with the properties of both ; which 



SOUND. 



101 



adjusted them to each other as we find them adjust- 
ed, in order that birds might communicate by song, 
that men might speak and hear, and that language 
might play its extraordinary part in its operation 
upon men's thoughts, actions, institutions, and for- 
tunes ? 

The vibrations of an elastic fluid like the air, and 
their properties, follow from the laws of motion; and 
whether or not these laws of the motion of fluids 
might in reality have been other than they are, they 
appear to us inseparably connected with the existence 
of matter, and as much a thing of necessity as we 
can conceive any thing in the universe to be. The 
propagation of such vibrations, therefore, and their 
properties, we may at present allow to be a neces- 
sary part of the constitution of the atmosphere. But 
what is it that makes these vibrations become sound? 
How is it that they produce such an effect on our 
senses, and, through those, on our minds? The vibra- 
tions of the air seem to be of themselves no more 
fitted to produce sound, than to produce smell. We 
know that such vibrations do not universally produce 
sound, but only between certain limits. When the 
vibrations are fewer than eighty in a second, they 
are perceived as separate throbs, and not as a con- 
tinued sound ; and there is a certain limit of rapidity, 
beyond which the vibrations become inaudible. This 
limit is different to different ears, and we are thus 
assured by one person's ear that there are vibrations, 
though to that of another they do not produce sound. 
How was the human ear adapted so that its percep- 
tion of vibrations as sounds should fall within these 
limits ? — the very limits within which the vibrations 
fall, which it most concerns us to perceive : those of 
the human voice for instance ? How nicely are the 
organs adjusted with regard to the most minute me- 
chanical motions of the elements ? 

i2 



102 



CHAPTER XV. 

The Atmosphere* 

We have considered in succession a Dumber of 
the properties and operations of the atmosphere, and 
have found them separately very curious. But an 
additional interest belongs to the subject when we 
consider them as combined. The atmosphere under 
this point of view must appear a contrivance of the 
most extraordinary kind. To answer any of its pur- 
poses, to carry on any of its processes, separately, re- 
quires peculiar arrangements and adjustments; to 
answer, all at once, purposes so varied, to combine 
without confusion so many different trains, implies 
powers and attributes which can hardly fail to excite 
in a high degree our admiration and reverence. 

If the atmosphere be considered as a vast ma- 
chine, it is difficult to form any just conception of the 
profound skill and comprehensiveness of design which 
it displays. It diffuses and tempers the heat of dif- 
ferent climates; for this purpose it performs a circu- 
lation occupying the whole range from the pole to 
the equator; and while it is doing this, it executes 
manv smaller circuits between the sea and the land. 
At the same time, it is the means of forming clouds 
and rain, and for this purpose, a perpetual circula- 
tion of the watery part of the atmosphere goes on 
between its lower and upper regions. Besides this 
complication of circuits, it exercises a more irregu- 
lar agency, in the occasional winds w T hich blow 7 from 
all quarters, tending perpetually to restore the equi- 
librium of heat and moisture. But this incessant and 
multiplied activity discharges only a part of the func- 
tions of the air. It is, moreover, the most important 
and universal material of the growth and sustenance 



THE ATMOSPHERE* 



103 



of plants and animals ; and is for this purpose every 
where present and almost uniform in its quantity. 
With all its local motion, it has also the office of a 
medium of communication between intelligent crea- 
tures, which office it performs by another set of mo- 
tions, entirely different both from the circulation and 
the occasional movements already mentioned ; these 
different kinds of motions not interfering materially 
with each other : and this last purpose, so remote 
from the others in its nature, it answers in a manner 
so perfect and so easy, that we cannot imagine that 
the object could have been more completely attain- 
ed, if this had been the sole purpose for which the 
atmosphere had been created. With all these quali- 
ties, this extraordinary part of our terrestrial system 
is scarcely ever in the way: and when we have oc- 
casion to do so, we put forth our hand and push it 
aside, without being aware of its being near us. 

We may add, that it is, in addition to all that we 
have hitherto noticed, a constant source of utility 
and beauty in its effects on light. Without air we 
should see nothing, except objects on which the suits 
rays fell, directly or by reflection. It is the atmo- 
sphere which converts sunbeams into daylight, and 
fills the space in which we are with illumination. 

The contemplation of the atmosphere, as a ma- 
chine which answers all these purposes, is well suited 
to impress upon us the strongest conviction of the 
most refined, far-seeing, and far-ruling contrivance. 
It seems impossible to suppose that these various 
properties w T ere so bestowed and so combined, any 
otherwise than by a beneficent and intelligent Being, 
able and willing to diffuse organization, life, health, 
and enjoyment through all parts of the visible world: 
possessing a fertility of means which no multiplicity 
of objects could exhaust, and a discrimination of con- 
sequences which no complication of conditions could 
embarrass. 



104 



CHAPTER XVI. 
Light 

Besides the hearing and sound there is another 
mode by which we become sensible of the impres- 
sions of external objects, namely, sight and light. 
This subject also offers some observations bearing on 
our present purpose. 

It has been declared by writers on Natural Theo- 
logy, that the human eye exhibits such evidence of 
design and skill in its construction, that no one, who 
considers it attentively, can resist this impression: 
nor does this appear to be saying too much. It must, 
at the same time, be obvious that this construction of 
the eye could not answer its purposes, except the 
constitution of light corresponded to it. Light is an 
element of the most peculiar kind and properties, and 
such an element can hardly be conceived to have 
been placed in the universe without a regard to its 
operation and functions. As the eye is made for 
light, so light must have been made, at least among 
other ends, for the eye. 

L We must expect to comprehend imperfectly 
only the mechanism of the elements. Still, we have 
endeavoured to show that in some instances the ar- 
rangements by which their purposes are effected are, 
to a certain extent, intelligible. In order to explain, 
however, in what manner light answers those ends 
which appear to us its principal ones, we must know 
something of the nature of light. There have, 
hitherto, been, among men of science, two prevailing 
opinions upon this subject: some considering light as 
consisting in the emission of luminous particles; 
others accounting for its phenomena by the propaga- 
tion of vibrations through a highly subtle and elastic 



LIGHT. 



105 



ether. The former opinion has, till lately, been most 
generally entertained in this country, having been 
the hypothesis on which Newton made his calcula- 
tions; the latter is the one to w r hich most of those 
persons have been led, who, in recent times, have 
endeavoured to deduce general conclusions from the 
newly discovered phenomena of light. Among these 
persons, the theory of undulations is conceived to be 
established in nearly the same manner, and almost as 
certainly, as the doctrine of universal gravitation ; 
namely, by a series of laws inferred from numerous 
facts, which, proceeding from different sets of phe- 
nomena, are found to converge to one common view; 
and by calculations founded upon the theory, which, 
indicating new and untried facts, are found to agree 
exactly with experiment. 

We cannot here introduce a sketch of the progress 
by which the phenomena have thus led to the accept- 
ance of the theory of undulations. But this theory 
appears to have such claims to our assent, that the 
views which we have to offer with regard to the de- 
sign exercised in the adaptation, of light to its pur- 
poses, will depend on the undulatory theory, so far 
as they depend on theory at all.* 

2, The impressions of sight, like those of hearing, 
differ in intensity and in kind. Brightness and Colour 
are the principal differences among visible things, as 
loudness and pitch are among sounds. But there is 
a singular distinction between these senses in one 
respect: every object and part of an object seen, is 
necessarily and inevitably referred to some position 
in the space before us; and hence visible things have 
place, magnitude, form, as well as light, shade, and 
colour. There is nothing analogous to this in the 
sense of hearing ; for though we can, in some ap- 

* The reader who is acquainted with the two theories of 
light, will perceive that though we have adopted the doctrine of 
the ether, the greater part of the arguments adduced would be^ 
equally forcible, if expressed in the language of the theory of 
emission, 



106 



TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS. 



proximate degree, guess the situation of the point 
from which a sound proceeds, this is a secondary 
process, distinguishable from the perception of the 
sound itself; whereas we cannot conceive visible 
things without form and place. 

The law according to which the sense of vision is 
thus affected, appears to be this. By the properties 
of light, the external scene produces, through the 
transparent parts of the eye, an image or picture 
exactly resembling the reality, upon the back part of 
the retina : and each point w T hich we see, is seen in 
the direction of a line passing from its image on the 
retina, through the centre of the pupil of the eye.* 
In this manner we perceive by the eye the situation 
of every point, at the same time that we perceive its 
existence ; and by combining the situations of many 
points, w 7 e have forms and outlines of every sort. 

That we should receive from the eye this notice 
of the position of the object as well as of its other 
visible qualities, appears to be absolutely necessary 
for our intercourse with the external world; and the 
faculty of doing so is so intimate a part of our con- 
stitution that we cannot conceive ourselves divested 
of it. Yet in order to imagine ourselves destitute of 
this faculty, we have only to suppose that the eye 
should receive its impressions as the ear does, and 
should apprehend red and green, bright and dark, 
without placing them side by side; as the ear takes 
in the different sounds w T hich compose a concert, 
without attributing them to different parts of space. 

The peculiar property thus belonging to vision, of 
perceiving position, is so essential to us, that we may 
readily believe that some particular provision has 
been made for its existence. The remarkable me- 
chanism of the eye (precisely resembling that of a 
camera obscura,) by which it produces an image on 
the nervous web forming its hinder part, seems to 

* Or rather through the focal centre of the eye, which is al- 
ways near the centre of the pupil. 



LIGHT. 



107 



have this effect for its main object. And this me- 
chanism necessarily supposes certain corresponding 
properties in light itself, by means of which such an 
effect becomes possible. 

The main properties of light which are concerned 
in this arrangement, are reflexion and refraction : re- 
flexion by which light is reflected and scattered by 
all objects, and thus comes to the eye from all : and 
refraction, by which its course is bent, when it passes 
obliquely out of one transparent medium into another; 
and by which, consequently, convex transparent sub- 
stances, such as the cornea and humours of the eye, 
possess the power of making the light converge to a 
focus or point; an assemblage of such points forming 
the images on the retina, which we have mentioned. 

Reflexion and refraction are therefore the essential 
and indispensable properties of light ; and so far as 
we can understand, it appears that it was necessary 
that light should possess such properties, in order that 
it might form a medium of communication between 
man and the external world. We may consider its 
power of passing through transparent media (as air) 
to be given in order that it may enlighten the earth ; 
its affection of reflexion, for the purpose of making 
colours visible ; and its refraction to be bestowed, 
that it may enable us to discriminate figure and po- 
sition, by means of the lenses of the eye. 

In this manner light may be considered as consti- 
tuted with a peculiar reference to the eyes of ani- 
mals, and its leading properties may be looked upon 
as contrivances or adaptations to fit it for its visual 
office. And in such a point of view the perfection of 
the contrivance or adaptation must be allowed to be 
very remarkable. 

3. But besides the properties of reflexion and re- 
fraction, the most obvious laws of light, an extraor- 
dinary variety of phenomena have lately been dis- 
covered, regulated by other laws of the most curious 
kind, uniting great complexity with great symmetry. 
We refer to the phenomena of diffraction, polarisa- 



108- 



TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS. 



tion, and periodical colours, produced by crystals 
and by thin plates. We have, in these facts, a vast 
mass of properties and laws, offering a subject of 
study which has been pursued with eminent skill and 
intelligence. But these properties and laws, so far 
as has yet been discovered, exert no agency what- 
ever, and have no purpose, in the general economy 
of nature. Beams of light polarised in contrary di- 
rections exhibit the most remarkable differences 
when they pass through certain crystals, but mani- 
fest no discoverable difference in their immediate 
impression on the eye. We have, therefore, here, a 
number of laws of light, which we cannot perceive 
to be established with any design which has a refer- 
ence to the other parts of the universe. 

Undoubtedly it is exceedingly possible that these 
differences of light may operate in some quarter, 
and in some way, which we cannot detect; and that 
these laws may have purposes and may answer ends 
of which we have no suspicion. All the analogy of 
nature teaches us a lesson of humility, with regard to 
the reliance we are to place on our discernment and 
judgment as to such matters. But with our present 
knowledge, w T e may observe, that this curious system 
of phenomena appears to be a collateral result of the 
mechanism by which the effects of light are pro- 
duced ; and therefore a necessary consequence of the 
existence of that element of which the offices are so 
numerous and so beneficent. 

The new properties of light, and the speculations 
founded upon them, have led many persons to the 
belief of the undulatory theory ; which, as we have 
said, is considered by some philosophers as demon- 
strated. If we adopt this theory, we consider the 
luminiferous ether to have no local motion ; and to 
produce refraction and reflexion by the operation of 
its elasticity alone. We must necessarily suppose 
the tenuity of the ether to be extreme; and if we 
moreover suppose its tension to be very great, which 
the vast velocity of light requires us to suppose, the 



LIGHT. 



109 



vibrations by which light is propagated will be trans- 
verse vibrations, that is the motion to and fro will be 
athwart the line along which the undulation travels ; 
and from this circumstance all the laws of polarisa- 
tion necessarily follow. And the properties of trans- 
verse vibrations, combined w r ith the properties of vi- 
brations in general, give rise to all the curious and 
numerous phenomena of colours of which we have 
spoken, 

If the vibrations be transverse, they may be re- 
solved into two different planes ; this is polarisation : 
if they fall on a medium which has different elasticity 
in different directions, they will be divided into two 
sets of vibrations : this is double refraction ; and so on. 
Some of the new properties, however, as the fringes 
of shadows and the colours of thin plates, follow from 
the undulatory theory, whether the vibrations be 
transverse or not. 

It would appear, therefore, that the propagation of 
light by means of a subtle medium, leads necessarily 
to the extraordinary collection of properties which 
have recently been discovered ; and, at any rate, its 
propagation by the transverse vibrations of such a 
medium does lead inevitably to these results. 

Leaving it therefore to future times to point out 
the other reasons (or uses if they exist) of these 
newly discovered properties of light, in their bearing 
on other parts of the world, we may venture to say, 
that if light was to be propagated through transpa- 
rent media by the undulations of a subtle fluid, these 
properties must result, as necessarily as the rainbow 
results from the unequal refrangibility of different 
colours. This phenomenon and those, appear alike 
to be the collateral consequences of the law r s im- 
pressed on light with a view to its principal offices. 

Thus the exquisitely beautiful and symmetrical 
phenomena and laws of polarisation, and of crystal- 
line and other effects, may be looked upon as indi- 
cations of the delicacy and subtlety of the mechanism 
by which man, through his visual organs, is put in 

K 



110 



TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS. 



communication with the external world ; is made ac- 
quainted with the forms and qualities of objects in the 
most remote regions of space; and is enabled, in 
some measure, to determine his position and relation 
in a universe in which he is but an atom. 

4. If we suppose it clearly established that light is 
produced by the vibrations of an ether, we find con- 
siderations offer themselves, similar to those which 
occurred in the case of sound. The vibrations of 
this ether affect our organs with the sense of light 
and colour. Why, or how do they do this? It is 
only within certain limits that the effect is produced, 
and these limits are comparatively narrower here 
than in the case of sound. The whole scale of co- 
lour, from violet to crimson, lies between vibrations 
which are four hundred and fifty-eight million mil- 
lions, and seven hundred and twenty-seven million 
millions in a second ; a proportion much smaller 
than the corresponding ratio for perceptible sounds. 
Why should such vibrations produce perception in 
the eye, and no others ? There must be here some 
peculiar adaptation of the sensitive powers to these 
wonderfully minute and condensed mechanical mo- 
tions. What happens when the vibrations are slower 
than the red, or quicker than the blue ? They do not 
produce vision : do they produce any effect ? Have 
they any thing to do with heat or with electricity? 
We cannot tell. The ether must be as susceptible of 
these vibrations, as of those which produce vision. 
But the mechanism of the eye is adjusted to this lat- 
ter kind only ; and this precise kind, (whether alone 
or mixed with others,) proceeds from the sun and 
from other luminaries, and thus communicates to us 
the state of the visible universe. The mere material 
elements then are full of properties which we can 
understand no otherwise, than as the results of a re- 
fined contrivance. 



Ill 



CHAPTER XVII. 

The Ether. 

In what has just been said, we have spoken of 
light, only with respect to its power of illuminating 
objects, and conveying the impression of them to the 
eye, It possesses, however, beyond all doubt, many 
other qualities. Light is intimately connected with 
heat, as we see in the case of the sun and of flame ; 
yet it is clear that light and heat are not identical. 
Light is evidently connected too with electricity and 
galvanism ; and perhaps, through these, with magnet- 
ism: it is, as has already been mentioned, indispen- 
sably necessary to the healthy discharge of the func- 
tions of vegetable life ; without it plants cannot duly 
exercise their vital powers : it manifests also chemi- 
cal action in various ways. 

The luminiferous ether then, if we so call the me- 
dium in which light is propagated, must possess 
many other properties besides those mechanical ones 
on which the illuminating power depends. It must 
not be merely like a fluid poured into the vacant 
spaces and interstices of the material world, and ex- 
ercising no action on objects ; it must affect the phy- 
sical, chemical and vital powers of what it touches. 
It must be a great and active agent in the work of 
the universe, as well as an active reporter of what is 
done by other agents. It must possess a number of 
complex and refined contrivances and adjustments 
which we cannot analyze, bearing upon plants and 
chemical compounds, and the imponderable agents ; 
as well as those laws which we conceive that we 
have analyzed, by which it is the vehicle of illumi- 
nation and vision. 



T12* TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS* 

Wc have had occasion to point out how complex 
is the machinery of the atmosphere, and how varied 
its objects ; since, besides being the means of com- 
munication as the medium of sound, it has known 
laws which connect it with heat and moisture ; and 
other laws, in virtue of which it is decomposed by 
vegetables. It appears, in like manner, that the 
ether is not only the vehicle of light, but has also 
laws, at present unknown, which connect it with 
heat, electricity, and other agencies ; and other laws 
through which it is necessary to vegetables, enabling 
them to decompose air. All analogy leads us to sup- 
pose that if we knew as much of the constitution of 
the luminiferous ether as we know T of the constitu- 
tion of the atmosphere, w r e should find it a machine 
as complex and artificial, as skilfully and admirably 
constructed. 

We know at present very little indeed of the con- 
struction of this machine. Its existence is, perhaps^ 
satisfactorily made out; in order that we may not 
interrupt the progress of our argument, we shall 
refer to other works for the reasonings which appear 
to lead to this conclusion. But whether heat, elec- 
tricity, galvanism, magnetism, be fluids ; or effects or 
modifications of fluids ; and whether such fluids or 
ethers be the same with the luminiferous ether, or 
with each other ; are questions of which all or most 
appear to be at present undecided, and it would be 
presumptuous and premature here to take one side 
or the other. 

The mere fact, however, that there is such an 
ether, and that it has properties related to other 
agents, in the way we have suggested, is well calcu- 
lated to extend our views of the structure of the uni- 
verse, and of the resources, if we may so speak, of 
the Power by which it is arranged. The solid and 
fluid matter of the earth is the most obvious to our 
senses ; over this, and in its cavities, is poured an 
invisible fluid, the air, by which warmth and life are 
diffused and fostered, and by which men communi- 



RECAPITULATION. 



113 



cate with men: over and through this again, and 
reaching, so far as we know, to the utmost bounds of 
the universe, is spread another most subtle and at- 
tenuated fluid, which, by the play of another set of 
agents, aids the energies of nature, and which, fill- 
ing all parts of space, is a means of communication 
with other planets and other systems. 

There is nothing in all this like any material ne- 
cessity, compelling the world to be as it is and no 
otherwise. How should the properties of these three 
great classes of agents, visible objects, air, and light, 
so harmonize and assist each other, that order and 
life should be the result. Without all the three, and 
all the three constituted in their present manner, and 
subject to their present laws, living things could not 
exist. If the earth had no atmosphere, or if the 
world had no ether, all must be inert and dead. 
Who constructed these three extraordinary complex 
pieces of machinery, the earth with its productions, 
the atmosphere, and the ether? Who fitted them 
into each other in many parts, and thus made it 
possible for them to work together ? We conceive 
there can be but one answer ; a most wise and good 
God. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

Recapitulation. 

1. It has been shown in the preceding chapters 
that a great number of quantities and laws appear to 
have been selected in the construction of the universe ; 
and that by the adjustment to each other of the 
magnitudes and laws thus selected, the constitution 
of the world is what we find it, and is fitted for the 

k2 



114 TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS. 

support of vegetables and animals, in a manner in 
which it could not have been, if the properties and 
quantities of the elements had been different from 
what they are. We shall here recapitulate the prin- 
cipal of the laws and magnitudes to which this con- 
clusion has been shown to apply. 

1. The Length of the Year, which depends on 
the force of the attraction of the sun, and its dis- 
tance from the earth. 

2. The Length of the Day. 

3. The Mass of the Earth, which depends on its 
magnitude and density. 

4. The Magnitude of the Ocean. 

5. The Magnitude of the Atmosphere. 

6. The Law and Rate of the Conducting Power 
of the Earth. 

7. The Law and Rate of the Radiating Power 
of the Earth. 

8. The Law and Rate of the Expansion of 
Water by Heat. 

9. The Law and Rate of the Expansion of 
Water by Cold, below 40 degrees. 

10. The Law and Quantity of the Expansion of 
Water in Freezing. 

11. The Quantity of Latent Heat absorbed in 
Thawing. 

12. The Quantity of Latent Heat absorbed in 
Evaporation. 

13. The Law and Rate of Evaporation with re- 
gard to Heat, 

14. The Law and Rate of the Expansion of Air 
by Heat 

15. The Quantity of Heat absorbed in the Ex- 
pansion of Air. 

16. The Law and Rate of the Passage of 
Aqueous Vapour through Air. 

17. The Laws of Electricity; its relations to 
Air and Moisture. 



RECAPITULATION. 



115 



18. The Fluidity, Density, and Elasticity of the 
Air, by means of which its vibrations produce 
Sound. 

19. The Fluidity, Density, and Elasticity of the 
Ether, by means of which its vibrations produce 
Light. 

2. These are the data, the elements, as astronomers 
call the quantities which determine a planet's orbit, 
on which the mere inorganic part of the universe is 
constructed. To these, the constitution of the organic 
world is adapted in innumerable points, by laws of 
w r hich we can trace the results, though we cannot 
analyze their machinery. Thus, the vital functions 
of vegetables have periods which correspond to the 
length of the year, and of the day; their vital powers 
have forces which correspond to the force of gravity; 
the sentient faculties of man are such that the vibra- 
tions of air (within certain limits,) are perceived as 
sound, those of ether, as light. And while we are 
enumerating these correspondencies, we perceive 
that there are thousands of others, and that we can 
only select a very small number of those where the 
relation happens to be most clearly made out or 
most easily explained. 

Now, in the list of the mathematical elements of 
the universe which has just been given, why have we 
such laws and such quantities as there occur, and no 
other? For the most part, the data there enume- 
rated are independent of each other, and might be 
altered separately, so far as the mechanical condi- 
tions of the case are concerned. Some of these data 
I probably depend on each other. Thus the latent 
heat of aqueous vapour is perhaps connected with 
the difference of the rate of expansion of water and 
of steam. But all natural philosophers will, probably, 
agree, that there must be, in this list, a great number 
of things entirely without any mutual dependence, as 
the year and the day, the expansion of air and the 



116 



TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATION'S. 



expansion of steam. There are, therefore, it appears, 
a number of things which, in the structure of the 
world, might have been otherwise, and w T hich are 
what they are in consequence of choice or of chance. 
We have already seen, in many of the cases sepa- 
rately, how unlike chance every thing looks : — that 
substances, which might have existed any how, so 
far as they themselves are concerned, exist exactly 
in such a manner and measure as they should, to se- 
cure the welfare of other things: — that the laws are 
tempered and fitted together in the only way in 
w r hich the world could have gone on, according to 
all that w r e can conceive of it. This must, therefore, 
be the w r ork of choice; and if so, it cannot be doubt- 
ed, of a most wise and benevolent Chooser. 

3. The appearance of choice is still further illus- 
trated by the variety as w 7 ell as the number of the 
laws selected. The laws are unlike one another. 
Steam certainly expands at a very different rate from 
air by the application of heat, probably according to 
a different law: water expands in freezing, but mer- 
cury contracts : heat travels in a manner quite dif- 
ferent through solids and fluids. Every separate 
substance has its own density, gravity, cohesion, 
elasticity, its relations to heat, to electricity, to mag- 
netism ; besides all its chemical affinities, which form 
an endless throng of laws, connecting every one sub- 
stance in creation w r ith every other, and different for 
each pair anyhow taken. Nothing can look less like 
a world formed of atoms operating upon each other 
according to some universal and inevitable law T s, 
than this does: if such a system of things be con- 
ceivable, it cannot be our system. W e have, it may 
be, fifty simple substances in the world ; each of 
which is invested with properties, both of chemical 
and mechanical action, altogether different from 
those of any other substance. Every portion, how- 
ever minute, of any of these, possesses all the pro- 
perties of the substance. Of each of these substances 



RECAPITULATION'. 



117 



there is a certain unalterable quantity in the uni- 
verse ; when combined, their compounds exhibit new 
chemical affinities, new mechanical laws. Who gave 
these different laws to the different substances ? who 
proportioned the quantity of each ? But suppose this 
done. Suppose these substances in existence ; in con- 
tact, in due proportion to each other. Is this a world, 
or at least our world? No more than the mine and 
the forest are the ship of war and the factory. These 
elements, with their constitution perfect, and their 
proportion suitable, are still a mere chaos. They 
must be put in their places. They must not be where 
their own properties would place them. They must 
be made to assume a particular arrangement, or we 
can have no regular and permanent course of na- 
ture. This arrangement must again have additional 
peculiarities, or we can have no organic portion of 
the world. The millions of millions of particles which 
the world contains, must be finished up in as com- 
plete a manner, and fitted into their places with as 
much nicety, as the most delicate wheel or spring in 
a piece of human machinery. What are the habits 
of thought to which it can appear possible that this 
could take place without design, intention, intelli- 
gence, purpose, knowledge 1 

In what has just been said, we have spoken only of 
the constitution of the inorganic part of the universe. 
The mechanism, if we may so call it, of vegetable 
and animal life, is so far beyond our comprehension, 
that though some of the same observations might be 
applied to it, we do not dwell upon the subject. We 
know that in these processes also, the mechanical 
and chemical properties of matter are necessary, but 
we know too that these alone will not account for 
the phenomena of life. There is something more than 
these. The lowest stage of vitality and irritability 
appears to carry us beyond mechanism, beyond af- 
finity. All that has been said with regard to the 
exactness of the adjustments, the combination of va- 



118 



TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS. 



rious means, the tendency to continuance, to preser- 
vation, is applicable with additional force to the 
organic creation, so far as we can perceive the 
means employed. These, however, belong to a dif- 
ferent province of the subject, and must be left to 
other hands. 



BOOK IL 



COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS, 



When we turn our attention to the larger portions 
of the universe, the sun, the planets, and the earth 
as one of them, the moon and other satellites, the 
fixed stars and other heavenly bodies ; — the views 
which we obtain concerning their mutual relations, 
arrangement and movements, are called, as we have 
already stated, cosmical views. These views will, we 
conceive, afford us indications of the wisdom and 
care of the Power by which the objects which we 
thus consider, were created and are preserved : and 
we shall now proceed to point out some circumstances 
in which these attributes may be traced. 

It has been observed by writers on Natural The- 
ology, that the arguments for the being and perfec- 
tions of the Creator, drawn from cosmical considera- 
tions, labour under some disadvantages when com- 
pared with the arguments founded on those provisions 
and adaptations which more immediately affect the 
well-being of organized creatures. The structure of 
the solar system has far less analogy with such ma- 
chinery as we can construct and comprehend, than we 
find in the structure of the bodies of animals, or even 
in the causes of the weather. Moreover, we do not 
see the immediate bearing of cosmical arrangements 
on that end which we most readily acknowledge to 
be useful and desirable, the support and comfort of 
sentient natures. So that, from both causes, the im- 
pression of benevolent design in this case is less 



120 



COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS. 



striking and pointed than that which results from the 
examination of some other parts of nature. 

But in considering the universe, according to the 
view we have taken, as a collection of laws, astro- 
nomy, the science which teaches us the laws of the 
motions of the heavenly bodies, possesses some ad- 
vantages, among the subjects from which w r e may 
seek to learn the character of the government of the 
world. For our knowledge of the laws of the mo- 
tions of the planets and satellites is far more com- 
plete and exact, far more thorough and satisfactory, 
than the knowledge which we possess in any other 
department of Natural Philosophy. Our acquaint- 
ance with the laws of the solar system is such, that 
we can calculate the precise place and motion of 
most of its parts at any period, past or future, how- 
ever remote ; and we can refer the changes which 
take place in these circumstances to their proximate 
cause, the attraction of one mass of matter to an- 
other, acting between all the parts of the universe. 

If, therefore, we trace indications of the Divine 
care, either in the form of the laws which prevail 
among the heavenly bodies, or in the arbitrary 
quantities which such laws involve; (according to 
the distinction explained in the former part of this 
work ;) we may expect that our examples of such 
care, though they may be less numerous and ob- 
vious, w r ill be more precise than they can be in 
other subjects, where the laws of facts are imper- 
fectly known, and their causes entirely hid. We 
trust that this will be found to be the case with re- 
gard to some of the examples which we shall ad- 
duce. 



121 



CHAPTER I. 

The Structure of the Solar System. 

In the cosmical considerations which we have to 
offer, we shall suppose the general truths concerning 
the structure of the solar system and of the uni- 
verse, which have been established by astronomers 
and mathematicians, to be known to the reader. It 
is not necessary to go into much detail on this sub- 
ject The five planets known to the ancients, Mer- 
cury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, revolve round 
the sun, at different distances, in orbits nearly cir- 
cular, and nearly in one plane. Between Venus and 
Mars, our Earth, herself one of the planets, re- 
volves in like manner. Beyond Saturn, Uranus has 
been discovered describing an orbit of the same 
kind; and between Mars and Jupiter, four smaller 
bodies perform their revolutions in orbits somewhat 
less regular than the rest. These planets are all 
nearly globular, and all revolve upon their axis. 
Some of them are accompanied by satellites, or at- 
tendant bodies which revolve about them; and these 
bodies also have their orbits nearly circular, and 
nearly in the same plane as the others. Saturn's 
ring is a solitary example, so far as we know, of 
such an appendage to a planet. 

These circular motions of the planets round the 
sun, and of the satellites round their primary planets, 
are all kept going by the attraction of the respective 
central bodies, which restrains the corresponding 
revolving bodies from flying off. It is perhaps not 
very easy to make this operation clear to common 
apprehension. We cannot illustrate it by a compa- 
rison with any machine of human contrivance and 
fabrication : in such machines every thing goes on 

L 



122 



COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS. 



by contact and impulse : pressure, and force of all 
kinds, is exercised and transferred from one part to 
another, by means of a material connexion ; by rods, 
ropes, fluids, gases. In the machinery of the uni- 
verse there is, so far as we know, no material con- 
nexion between the parts which act on each other. 
In the solar system no part touches or drives an- 
other : all the bodies affect each other at a distance. 
as the magnet affects the needle. The production 
and regulation of such effects, if attempted by our 
mechanicians, w T ould require great skill and nicety 
of adjustment ; but our artists have not executed any 
examples of this sort of machinery, by reference to 
w r hich w r e can illustrate the arrangements of the 
solar system. 

Perhaps the following comparison may serve to 
explain the kind of adjustments of which we shall 
have to speak. If there be a wide shallow round 
basin of smooth marble, and if we take a smooth 
ball, as a billiard ball or a marble pellet, and throw 
it along the surface of the inside of the basin, the 
ball will generally make many revolutions round the 
inside of the bowl, gradually tending to the bottom 
in its motion. The gradual diminution of the motion, 
and consequent tendency of the ball to the bottom 
of the bowl, arises from the friction ; and in order 
to make the motion correspond to that which takes 
place through the action of a central force, we must 
suppose this friction to be got rid of. In this case, 
the ball, once set a going, would run round the basin 
for ever, describing either a circle, or various kinds 
of ovals, according to the way in which it was ori- 
ginally thrown ; whether quick or slow, and whether 
more or less obliquely along the surface. 

Such a motion would be capable of the same kind 
of variety, and the same sort of adjustments, as the 
motion of a body revolving about a larger one by 
means of a central force. Perhaps the reader may 
understand what kind of adjustments these are, by 
supposing such a bowl and ball to be used for a game 



SOLAR SYSTEM. 



123 



of skill. If the object of the players be to throw the 
pellet along the surface of the basin, so that after de- 
scribing its curved path it shall pass through a small 
a a barrier at some distance from the starting 
it will easily be understood that some nicety in 
the regulation of the force and direction with which 
the ball is thrown will be necessary for success. In 
order to obtain a better image of the solar system, 
w r e must suppose the basin to be very large and the 
pellet very small. And it will easily be understood 
that as many pellets as there are planets might run 
round the bowl at the same time with different velo- 
cities. Such a contrivance might form a planetarium 
in which the mimic planets would be regulated by 
the laws of motion as the real planets are ; instead of 
being carried by wires and wheels, as is done in 
such machines of the common construction: and in 
this planetarium the tendency of the planets to the 
sun is replaced by the tendency of the representative 
pellets to run down the slope of the bowl. We shall 
refer again to this basin, thus representing the solar 
system with its loosa planetary balls. 



CHAPTER IL 
The Circular Orbits of the Planets round the Sun. 

The orbit which the earth describes round the sun 
is very nearly a circle : the sun is about one thirtieth 
nearer to us in winter than in summer. This nearly 
circular form of the orbit, on a little consideration, 
will appear to be a remarkable circumstance. 

Supposing the attraction of a planet towards the 
sun to exist, if the planet were put in motion in any 
part of the solar system, it would describe about the 
sun an orbit of some kind; it might be a long oval, or 



124 



C0SM1CAL ARRANGEMENTS. 



a shorter oval, or an exact circle. But if we suppose 
the result left to chance, the chances are infinitely 
against the last mentioned case. There is but one 
circle ; there are an infinite number of ovals. Any 
original impulse would give some oval, but only one 
particular impulse, determinate in velocity and di- 
rection, will give a circle. If we suppose the planet 
to be originally projected, it must be projected per- 
pendicularly to its distance from the sun, and with a 
certain precise velocity, in order that the motion 
may be circular. 

In the basin to which we have compared the solar 
system, the adjustment requisite to produce circular 
motion would require us to project our pellet so that 
after running half round the surface it should touch 
a point exactly at an equal distance from the centre, 
on the other side, passing neither too high nor too 
low. And the pellet, it may be observed, should be 
in size only one ten thousandth part of the distance 
from the centre, to make the dimensions correspond 
with the cast of the earth's orbit. If the mark were 
set up and hit, we should hardly attribute the result 
to chance. 

The earth's orbit, however, is not exactly a circle. 
The mark is not precisely a single point, but is a 
space of the breadth of one thirtieth of the distance 
from the centre. Still this is much too near an agree- 
ment with the circle to be considered as the work of 
chance. The chances were great against the ball 
passing so nearly at the same distance, for there 
were twenty-nine equal spaces through which it 
might have gone, between the mark and the centre, 
and an indefinite number outside the mark. 

But it is not the earth's orbit alone which is nearly 
a circle : the rest of the planets also approach very 
nearly to that form : Venus more nearly still than 
the earth: Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus have a differ- 
ence of about one tenth, between their greatest and 
least distances from the sun: Mars has his extreme 
distances in the proportion of five to six nearly; and 



CIRCULAR ORBITS. 



125 



Mercury in the proportion of two to three. The last 
mentioned case is a considerable deviation, and two 
of the small planets which lie between Mars and Ju- 
piter, namely Juno and Pallas, exhibit an inequality 
somewhat greater still; but the smallness of these 
bodies, and other circumstances, make it probable 
that there may be particular causes for the exception 
in their case. The orbits of the satellites of the 
Earth, of Jupiter and of Saturn, are also nearly cir- 
cular. 

Taking the solar system altogether, the regularity 
of its structure is very remarkable. The diagram 
which represents the orbits of the planets might have 
consisted of a number of ovals, narrow and wide in 
all degrees, intersecting and interfering with each 
other in all directions. The diagram does consist, 
as all who have opened a book of astronomy know, 
of a set of figures which appear at first sight con- 
centric circles, and which are very nearly so; no 
where approaching to any crossing or interfering, 
except in the case of the small planets, already no- 
ticed as irregular. No one, looking at this common 
diagram, can believe that the orbits were made to 
be so nearly circles by chance ; any more than he 
can believe that a target, such as archers are accus- 
tomed to shoot at, was painted in concentric circles 
by the accidental dashes of a brush in the hands of a 
blind man. 

The regularity, then, of the solar system excludes 
the notion of accident in the arrangement of the or- 
bits of the planets. There must have been an ex- 
press adjustment to produce this circular character 
of the orbits. The velocity and direction of the mo- 
tion of each planet must have been subject to some 
original regulation ; or, as it is often expressed, the 
projectile force must have been accommodated to 
the centripetal force. This once done, the motion of 
each planet, taken by itself, would go on for ever, 
still retaining its circular character, by the laws of 
motion. 

l 2 



126 



C0SM1CAL ARRANGEMENTS, 



If some original cause adjusted the orbits of the 
planets to their circular form and regular arrange- 
merit, we can hardly avoid including in our concep- 
tion of this cause, the intention and will of a Creating 
Power. We shall consider this argument more fully 
in a succeeding chapter ; only observing here, that 
the presiding Intelligence, which has selected and 
combined the properties of the organic creation, so 
that they correspond so remarkably w 7 ith the arbi- 
trary quantities of the system of the universe, may 
readily be conceived also to have selected the arbi- 
trary velocity and direction of each planet's motion, 
so that the adjustment should produce a close ap- 
proximation to a circular motion. 

We have argued here only from the regularity of 
the solar system ; from the selection of the single 
symmetrical case and the rejection of all the unsym- 
metrical cases. But this subject may be considered 
in another point of view. The system thus selected 
is not only regular and symmetrical, but also it is, so 
far as we can judge, the only one which would an- 
swer the purpose of the earth, perhaps of the other 
planets, as the seat of animal and vegetable life. If 
the earth's orbit were more eccentric, as it is called, 
if for instance the greatest and least distances were 
as three to one, the inequality of heat at two seasons 
of the year would be destructive to the existing spe- 
cies of living creatures. A circular, or nearly cir- 
cular, orbit, is the only case in which we can have a 
course of seasons such as we have at present, the 
only case in which the climates of the northern and 
southern hemispheres are nearly the same; and what 
is more clearly important, the only case in which the 
character of the seasons would not vary from cen- 
tury to century. For if the eccentricity of the earth's 
orbit were considerable, the difference of heat at dif- 
ferent seasons, arising from the different distances of 
the sun, would be combined with the difference, now r 
the only considerable one, which depends on the 
position of the earth's axis. And as by the motion 



STABILITY OF THE SYSTEM. 



127 



of the perihelion, or place of the nearest distance of 
the earth to the sun, this nearest distance would fall 
in different ages at different parts of the year, the 
whole distribution of heat through the year would 
thus be gradually subverted. The summer and win- 
ter of the tropical year, as we have it now, being 
combined with the heat and cold of the anomalistic 
year, a period of different length, the difference of 
the two seasons might sometimes be neutralized alto- 
gether, and at other times exaggerated by the accu- 
mulation of the inequalities, so as to be intolerable. 

The circular form of the orbit therefore, which, 
from its unique character, appears to be chosen with 
some design, from its effects on the seasons appears 
to be chosen with this design, so apparent in other 
parts of creation, of securing the welfare of organic- 
life, by a steadfast and regular order of the solar in- 
fluence upon the planet. 



CHAPTER III. 

The Stability of the Solar System* 

There is a consequence resulting from the actual 
structure of the solar system, which has beer brought 
to light by the investigations of mathematicians con- 
cerning the cause and laws of its motions, and which 
has an important bearing on our argument. It ap- 
pears that the arrangement which at present obtains 
is precisely that which is necessary to secure the 
stability of the system. This point we must endea- 
vour to explain. 

If each planet were to revolve round the sun 
without being affected by the other planets, there 
would be a certain degree of regularity in its mo- 
tion; and this regularity would continue for ever. 
But it appears, by the discovery of the law of uni- 



128 



COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS. 



versal gravitation, that the planets do not execute 
their movements in this insulated and independent 
manner. Each of them is acted on by the attraction 
of all the rest. The Earth is constantly drawn by 
Venus, by Mars, by Jupiter, bodies of various mag- 
nitudes, perpetually changing their distances and po- 
sitions with regard to the earth; the Earth in return 
is perpetually drawing these bodies. What, in the 
course of time, will be the result of this mutual at- 
traction? 

All the planets are very small compared with the 
sun, and therefore the derangement which they pro- 
duce in the motion of one of their number will be 
very small in the course of one revolution. But this 
gives us no security that the derangement may not 
become very large in the course of many revolu- 
tions. The cause acts perpetually, and it has the 
whole extent of time to work in. Is it not easily 
conceivable then that in the lapse of ages the de- 
rangements of the motions of the planets may accu- 
mulate, the orbits may change their form, their mu- 
tual distances may be much increased or much 
diminished 1 Is it not possible that these changes 
may go on without limit, and end in the complete 
subversion and ruin of the system 1 

If, for instance, the result of this mutual gravita- 
tion should be to increase considerably the eccen- 
tricity of the earth's orbit, that is to make it a longer 
and longer oval; or to make the moon approach 
perpetually nearer and nearer the earth every revo- 
lution; it is easy to see that in the one case our year 
w r ould change its character, as we have noticed in 
the last section; in the other, our satellite might 
finally fall to the earth, which must of course bring 
about a dreadful catastrophe. If the positions of the 
planetary orbits, w r ith respect to that of the earth, 
were to change much, the planets might sometimes 
come very near us, and thus exaggerate the effects 
of their attraction beyond calculable limits. Under 
such circumstances, we might have " years of une- 



STABILITY OF THE SYSTEM. 



129 



qual length, and seasons of capricious temperature, 
planets and moons of portentous size and aspect, 
glaring and disappearing at uncertain intervals;" 

* tides like deluges, sweeping over whole continents ; 
and, perhaps, the collision of two of the planets, and 
the consequent destruction of all organization on 
both of them. 

Nor is it, on a common examination of the history 
of the solar system, at all clear that there is no ten- 
dency to indefinite derangement. The fact really is, 

* that changes are taking place in the motions of the 
heavenly bodies, which have gone on progressively 
from the first dawn of science. The eccentricity of 
the earth's orbit has been diminishing from the ear- 
liest observations to our times. The moon has been 
moving quicker and quicker from the time of the 
first recorded eclipses, and is now in advance, by 

* about four times her own breadth, of what her place 
would have been if it had not been affected by this 
acceleration. The obliquity of the ecliptic also is in 
a state of diminution, and is now about two-fifths of 

a degree less than it was in tho time of Aristotle. 

Will these changes go on without limit or reaction % 
If so, we tend by natural causes to a termination of 
the present system of things : If not, by what adjust- 
ment or combination are we secured from such a 

* tendency I Is the system stable, and if so, what is the 
condition on which its stability depends ? 

To answer these questions is far from easy. The 
mechanical problem which they involve is no less 
than this ; — Having given the directions and veloci- 
ties with which about thirty bodies are moving at 
one time, to find their places and motions after any 
, number of ages ; each of the bodies, all the while, 
attracting all the others, and being attracted by 
them all. 

It may readily be imagined that this is a problem 
of extreme complexity, when it is considered that 
every new configuration or arrangement of the bo* 
dies will give rise to a new amount of action on 



130 



COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS. 



each ; and every new action to a new configuration. 
Accordingly, the mathematical investigation of such 
questions as the above was too difficult to be attempt- 
ed in the earlier periods of the progress of Physical 
Astronomy. Newton did not undertake to demon- 
strate either the stability or the instability of the sys- 
tem. The decision of this point required a great 
number of preparatory steps and simplifications, and 
such progress in the invention and improvement of 
mathematical methods, as occupied the best mathe- 
maticians of Europe for the greater part of last 
century But, towards the end of that time, it w 7 as 
shown by Lagrange and Laplace that the arrange- 
ments of the solar system are stable : that in the long 
run, the orbits and motions remain unchanged; and 
that the changes in the orbits, which take place in 
shorter periods, never transgress certain very mode- 
rate limits. Each orbit undergoes deviations on this 
side and on that of its average state ; but these de- 
viations are never very great, and it finally recovers 
from them, so that the average is preserved. The 

planets produce perpetual perturbations in each 
other's motions, but these perturbations are not in- 
definitely progressive, they are periodical: they 
reach a maximum value and then diminish. The 
periods which this restoration requires are, for the 
most part, enormous ; not less than thousands, and, 
in some instances, millions of years ; and hence it is, 
that some of these apparent derangements have been 
going on in the same direction since the beginning 
of the history of the world. But the restoration is 
in the sequel as complete as the derangement ; and 
in the meantime the disturbance never attains a suf- 
ficient amount seriously to alter the adaptations of 
the system.* 

The same examination of the subject by which this 
is proved, points out also the conditions on which 
this stability depends. " I have succeeded in de- 



* Laplace Expos, du Syst. du Monde, p. 441. 



STABILITY OF THE SYSTEM. 



131 



monstrating," says Laplace, " that whatever be the 
masses of the planets, in consequence of the fact that 
they all move in the same direction, in orbits of 
small eccentricity, and slightly inclined to each other 
—their secular inequalities are periodical and includ- 
ed within narrow limits; so that the planetary system 
will only oscillate about a mean state, and will never 
deviate from it except by a very small quantity. The 
ellipses of the planets have been, and always will be, 
nearly circular. The ecliptic will never coincide with 
the equator, and the entire extent of the variation in 
its inclination cannot exceed three degrees." 

There exists, therefore, it appears, in the solar sys- 
tem, a provision for the permanent regularity of its 
motions ; and this provision is found in the fact that 
the orbits of the planets are nealy circular, and near- 
ly in the same plane, and the motions all in the same 
direction, namely, from west to east* 

Now is it probable that the occurrence of these 
conditions of stability in the disposition of the solar 
system is the work of chance ? Such a supposition 
appears to be quite inadmissible. Any one of the or- 

* In this statement of Laplace, however, one remarkable pro- 
vision for the stability of the system is not noticed. The planets 
Mercury and Mars, which have much the largest eccentricities 
among the old planets, are those of which the masses are much 
the smallest. The mass of Jupiter is more than two thousand 
times that of either of these planets. If the orbit of Jupiter were 
as eccentric as that of Mercury is, all the security for the stability 
of the system, which analysis has yet pointed out, would disap- 
pear. The earth and the smaller planets might in that case change 
their approximately circular orbits into very long ellipses, and 
thus might fall into the sun, and fly off into remote space. 

It is further remarkable that in the newly discovered planets, 
of which the orbits are still more eccentric than that of Mer- 
cury, the masses are still smaller, so that the same provision is 
established in this case also. It does not appear that any mathe- 
matician has even attempted to point out a necessary connexion 
between the mass of a planet and the eccentricity of its orbit 
on any hypothesis. May we not then consider this combination 
of small masses with large eccentricities, so important to the 
purposes of the world, as a mark of provident care in the 
Creator] 



132 



COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS* 



bits might have had any eccentricity.* In that of 
Mercury, where it is much the greatest, it is only 
one-fifth. How came it to pass that the orbits were 
not more elongated I A little more or a little less 
velocity in their original motions would have made 
them so. They might have had any inclination to 
the ecliptic from no degrees to 90 degrees. Mercury, 
which again deviates most widely, is inclined 7f de- 
grees, Venus 3f , Saturn 2f, Jupiter 1^, Mars 2. How 
came it that their motions are thus contained within 
such a narrow strip of the sky? One, or any number 
of them, might have moved from east to west: 
none of them does so. And these circumstances, 
which appear to be, each in particular, requisite for 
the stability of the system and the smallness of its dis- 
turbances, are all found in combination. Does not 
this imply both clear purpose and profound skill ? 

It is difficult to convey an adequate notion of the 
extreme complexity of the task thus executed. A 
number of bodies, all attracting each other, are to be 
projected in such a manner that their revolutions 
shall be permanent and stable, their mutual pertur- 
bations always small. If we return to the basin with 
its rolling balls, by which we before represented the 
solar system, we must complicate with new condi- 
tions the trial of skill which we supposed. The prob- 
lem must now be to project at once seven such balls, 
all connected by strings which influence their move- 
ments, so that each may hit its respective marL 
And we must further suppose, that the marks are to 
be hit after many thousand revolutions of the balls. 
No one will imagine that this could be done by 
accident. 

In fact it is allowed by all those who have consi- 
dered this subject, that such a coincidence of the ex- 

* The eccentricity of a planet's orbit is measured by taking* 
the proportion of the difference of the greatest and least distances 
from the sun, to the sum of the same distances. Mercury's 
greatest and least distances are as two and three ; his eccentri- 
city, therefore, is one-fifth. 



STABILITY OF THE SYSTEM. 



133 



Istlng state with the mechanical requisites of perma- 
nency cannot be accidental Laplace has attempted 
to calculate the probability that it is not the result of 
accident He takes into account, in addition to the 
motions which we have mentioned, the revolutions 
of the satellites about their primaries, and of the sun 
and planets about their axes : and he finds that there 
is a probability, far higher than that which we have 
for the greater part of undoubted historical events, 
that these appearances are not the effect of chance. 

We ought, therefore," he says, " to believe, with at 
least the same confidence, that a primitive cause has 
directed the planetary motions." 

The solar system is thus, by the confession of all 
sides, completely different from any thing which we 
might anticipate from the casual operation of its 
known law's. The laws of motion are no less obeyed 
to the letter in the most irregular than in the most re- 
gular motions; no less in the varied circuit of the 
ball which flies round a tennis court, than in the go- 
ing of a clock; no less in the fantastical jets and leaps 
which breakers make when they burst in a corner of 
a rocky shore, than in the steady swell of the open 
sea. The laws of motion alone will not produce the 
regularity which we admire in the motions of the 
heavenly bodies. There must be an original adjust- 
ment of the system on which these laws are to act; 
a selection of the arbitrary quantities which they are 
to involve; a primitive cause which shall dispose the 
elements in due relation to each other, in order that 
regular recurrence may accompany constant change; 
that perpetual motion may be combined w T ith per- 
petual stability ; that derangements which go on in- 
creasing for thousands or for millions of years may 
finally cure themselves; and that the same laws which 
lead the planets slightly aside from their paths, may 
narrowly limit their deviations, and bring them back 
from their almost imperceptible wanderings. 

If a man does not deny that any possible peculiari- 
ty in the disposition of the planets with regard to the 

M 



134 



COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS. 



sun could afford evidence of a controlling and order- 
ing purpose, it seems difficult to imagine how he 
could look for evidence stronger than that which 
there actually is. Of all the innumerable possible 
cases of systems, governed by the existing laws of 
force and motion, that one is selected which alone 
produces such a steadfast periodicity, such a constant 
average of circumstances, as are, so far as we can 
conceive, necessary conditions for the existence of 
organic and sentient life. And this selection is so far 
from being an obvious or easily discovered means to 
this end, that the most profound and attentive consi- 
deration of the properties of space and number, with 
all the appliances and aids we can obtain, are barely 
sufficient to enable us to see that the end is thus se- 
cured, and that it can be secured in no other way. 
Surely the obvious impression which arises from this 
view of the subject is, that the solar system, with its 
adjustments, is the work of an intelligence, who per- 
ceives, as self-evident, those truths, to which we at- 
tain painfully and slowly, and after all imperfectly; 
who has employed in every part of creation refined 
contrivances, which we can only with effort under- 
stand; and who, in innumerable instances, exhibits to 
us what we should look upon as remarkable difficul- 
ties remarkably overcome, if it were not that, through 
the perfection of the provision, the trace of the dif- 
ficulty is almost obliterated. 



CHAPTER IV. 

The Sun in the Centre. 

The next circumstance which we shall notice as 
indicative of design in the arrangement of the mate- 
rial portions of the solar system, is the position of the 
sun, the source of light and heat, in the centre of the 



THE SUN IN THE CENTRE. 



135 



system. This could hardly have occurred by any 
thing which we can call chance. Let it be granted, 
that the law of gravitation is established, and that 
we have a large mass, with others much smaller in 
its comparative vicinity. The small bodies may then 
move round the larger, but this will do nothing to- 
wards making it a sun to them. Their motions might 
take place, the whole system remaining still utterly 
dark and cold, without day or summer. In order that 
we may have something more than this blank and 
dead assemblage of moving clods, the machine must 
be lighted up and warmed. Some of the advantages of 
placing the lighting and warming apparatus in the 
centre are obvious to us. It is in this way only that 
we could have those regular periodical returns of 
solar influence, which, as we have seen, are adapted 
to the constitution of the living creation. And we 
can easily conceive, that there may be other incon- 
gruities in a system with a travelling sun, of which 
we can only conjecture the nature. No one probably 
will doubt that the existing system, with ihe sun in 
the centre, is better than any one of a different kind 
would be. 

Now this lighting and warming by a central sun 
are something superadded to the mere mechanical 
arrangements of the universe. There is no apparent 
reason why the largest mass of gravitating matter 
should diffuse inexhaustible supplies of light and heat 
in all directions, while the other masses are merely 
passive, with respect to such influences. There is no 
obvious connexion between mass and luminousness, 
or temperature. No one, probably, will contend that 
the materials of our system are necessarily luminous 
or hot. According to the conjectures of astronomers, 
the heat and light of the sun do not reside in its mass, 
but in a coating which lies on its surface. If such a 
coating were fixed there by the force of universal 
gravitation, how could we avoid having a similar 
coating on the surface of the earth, and of all the 
other globes of the system. If light consist in the 



186 



COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS. 



vibrations of an ether, which we have mentioned a£ 
a probable opinion, why has the sun alone the power 
of exciting such vibrations ? If light be the emission 
of material particles, why does the sun alone emit 
such particles 1 Similar questions may be asked, with 
regard to heat, whatever be the theory we adopt on 
that subject. Here then we appear to find marks of 
contrivance. The sun might become, we will sup- 
pose, the centre of the motions of the planets by 
mere mechanical causes : but w T hat caused the centre 
of their motions to be also the source of those vivi- 
fying influences? Allowing that no interposition \va? 
requisite to regulate the revolutions of the system, 
yet observe what a peculiar arrangement in other 
respects was necessary, in order that these revolu- 
tions might produce days and seasons ! The machine 
will move of itself, we may grant: but who con- 
structed the machine, so that its movements might 
answer the purposes of life? How was the candle 
placed upon the candlestick T How was the fire de- 
posited on the hearili, st> that the comfort and well- 
being of the family might be secured? Did these too 
fall into their places by the casual operation of 
gravity ? And, if not, is there not here a clear evi- 
dence of intelligent design, of arrangement with a 
benevolent end ? 

This argument is urged with great force by New- 
ton himself. In his first letter to Bentley, he allows 
that matter might form itself into masses by the force 
of attraction. " And thus," says he, " might the sun 
and fixed stars be formed, supposing the matter were 
of a lucid nature. But how the matter should divide 
itself into two sorts ; and that part of it w T hich is fit 
to compose a shining body should fall down into one 
mass, and make a sun ; and the rest, which is fit to 
compose an opaque body, should coalesce, not into 
one great body, like the shining matter, but into 
many little ones ; or if the sun at first were an opake 
body like the planets, or the planets lucid bodies like 
the sun, how he alone should be changed into g 



THE SATELLITES. 137 

shining body, whilst all they continue opake ; or all 
they be changed into opake ones, while he continued 
unchanged : I do not think explicable by mere natu- 
ral causes, but am forced to ascribe it to the counsel 
and contrivance of a voluntary Agent" 



CHAPTER V, 

The Satellites. 

h A person of ordinary feelings, who, on a fine 
moonlight night, sees our satellite pouring her mild 
radiance on field and town, path and moor, will pro- 
bably not only be disposed to " bless the useful light," 
but also to believe that it was " ordained 5 ' for that 
purpose ;— that the lesser light was made to rule the 
night as certainly as the greater light w r as made to 
rule the day. 

Laplace, however, does not assent to this belief. 
He observes, that " some partisans of final causes 
have imagined that the moon was given to the earth 
to afford light during the night:" but he remarks that 
this cannot be so, for that we are often deprived at 
• the same time of the light of the sun and the moon; 
and he points out how the moon might have been 
placed so as to be always " full." 

That the light of the moon affords, to a certain ex- 
tent, a supplement to the light of the sun, will hardly 
be denied. If we take man in a condition in which 
he uses artificial light scantily only, or not at all, 
there can be no doubt that the moonlight nights are 
for him a very important addition to the time of 
daylight. And as a small proportion only of the 
whole number of nights are without some portion of 
moonlight, the fact that sometimes both luminaries 
are invisible very little diminishes the value of this 
advantage. Why we have not more moonlight, 

m2 



138 



either in duration or in quantity, is an inquiry whicfi 
a philosopher could hardly be tempted to enter upon? 
by any success which has attended previous specula- 
tions of a similar nature. Why should not the moon 
be ten times as large as she is ? Why should not the 
pupil of man's eye be ten times as large as it is, so 
as to receive more of the light which does arrive? 
We do not conceive that our inability to answer the 
latter question prevents our knowing that the eye was 
made for seeing : nor does our inability to answer 
the former, disturb our persuasion that the moon was 
made to give light upon the earth, 

Laplace suggests that if the moon had been placed 
at a certain distance beyond the earth, it would have 
revolved about the sun in the same time as the earth 
does, and would have always presented to us a full 
moon. For this purpose it must have been about four 
times as far from us as it really is ; and would there- 
fore, other things remaining unchanged, have only 
been one sixteenth as large to the eye as our present 
full moon. We shall not dwell on the discussion of 
this suggestion, for the reason just intimated. But 
we may observe that in such a system as Laplace 
proposes, it is not yet proved, we believe, that the 
arrangement would be stable under the influence of 
the disturbing forces. And we may add that such 
an arrangement, in which the motion of one body 
has a co-ordinate reference to two others, as the mo- 
tion of the moon on this hypothesis would have to 
the sun and the earth, neither motion being subordi- 
nate to the other, is contrary to the whole known 
analogy of cosmical phenomena, and therefore has 
no claim to our notice as a subject of discussion. 

2. In turning our consideration to the satellites of 
the other planets of our system, there is one fact 
which immediately arrests our attention ; — the num- 
ber of such attendant bodies appears to increase as 
we proceed to planets farther and farther from the 
sun. Such at least is the general rule. Mercury and 
Venus, the planets nearest the sun, have no such at- 



THE SATELLITES. 



139 



tendants : the Earth has one. Mars, indeed, who is 
still farther removed, has none ; nor have the minor 
planets, Juno, Vesta, Ceres, Pallas ; so that the rule 
is only approximately verified. But Jupiter, who is 
at five times the earth's distance, has four satellites ; 
and Saturn, who is again at a distance nearly twice 
as great, has seven, besides that most extraordinary 
phenomenon his ring, which, for purposes of illumi- 
nation, is equivalent to many thousand satellites. Of 
Uranus it is difficult to speak, for his great distance 
renders it almost impossible to observe the smaller 
circumstances of his condition. It does not appear 
at all probable that he has a ring, like Saturn ; but 
he has at least five satellites which are visible to us, 
at the enormous distance of nine hundred millions of 
miles; and we believe that the astronomer will hardly 
deny that he may possibly have thousands of smaller 
ones circulating about him. 

• But leaving conjecture, and taking only the ascer- 
tained cases of Venus, the Earth, Jupiter, and Saturn, 
we conceive that a person of common understanding 
will be strongly impressed with the persuasion that 
the satellites are placed in the system with a view to 
compensate for the diminished light of the sun at 
greater distances. The smaller planets, Juno, Vesta, 
Ceres, and Pallas, differ from the rest in so many 
ways, and suggest so many conjectures of reasons 
for such differences, that we should almost expect to 
find them exceptions to such a rule. Mars is a more 
obvious exception. Some persons might conjecture 
from his case, that the arrangement itself, like other 
useful arrangements, has been brought about by 
some wider law which we have not yet detected. 
But whether or not we entertain such a guess, (it can 
be nothing more,) we see in other parts of creation, 
so many examples of apparent exceptions to rules, 
which are afterwards found to be explained, or pro- 
vided for by particular contrivances, that no one, 
familiar with such contemplations, will, by one ano- 



140 COSMIC AL ARRANGEMENTS. 

mally, be driven from the persuasion that the end 
which the arrangements of the satellites seem suited 
to answer is really one of the ends of their creation. 



CHAPTER VI. 

37/6 Stability of the Ocean. 

What is meant by the stability of the ocean may 
perhaps be explained by means of the following il- 
lustration. If we suppose the whole globe of the 
Earth to be composed of water, a sphere of cork, 
immersed in any part of it, would come to the sur- 
face of the water, except it were placed exactly at 
the centre of the earth ; and even if it were the 
slightest displacement of the cork sphere would end 
in its rising and floating. This would be the case 
whatever were the size of the cork sphere, and even 
if it were so large as to leave comparatively little 
room for the water ; and the result would be nearly 
the same, if the cork sphere, when in its central 
position, had on its surface prominences which pro- 
jected above the surface of the water. Now this 
brings us to the case in which we have a globe re- 
sembling our present earth, composed like it of water 
and of a solid centre, with islands and continents, 
but having these solid parts all made of cork. And 
it appears by the preceding reasoning, that in this 
case, if there were any disturbance either of the 
solid or fluid parts, the solid parts would rise from 
the centre of the watery sphere as far as they could: 
that is, all the water would run to one side and leave 
the land on the other. Such an ocean would be in 
unstable equilibrium. 

Now a question naturally occurs, is the equilibrium 
of our present ocean of this unstable kind, or is it 
stable? The sea, after its most violent agitations, 



STABILITY OF THE OCEAN. 



141 



appears to return to its former state of repose ; but 
may not some extraordinary cause produce in it 
some derangement which may go on increasing till 
the waters all rush one way, and thus drown the 
highest mountains? And if we are safe from this 
danger, what are the conditions by which we are so 
secured ? 

The illustration which we have employed ob- 
viously suggests the answer to this question ; namely, 
that the equilibrium is unstable, so long as the solid 
parts are of such a kind as to float in the fluid parts; 
and of course we should expect that the equilibrium 
will be stable whenever the contrary is the case, that 
is, when the solid parts of the earth are of greater 
specific gravity than the sea. A more systematic 
mathematical calculation has conducted Laplace to 
a demonstration of this result 

The mean specific gravity of the earth appears to 
be about five times that of water, so that the condi- 
tion of the stability of the ocean is abundantly fuU 
filled And the provision by which this stability is 
secured was put in force through the action of those 
causes, whatever they were, which made the den- 
sity of the solid materials and central parts of the 
earth greater than the density of the incumbent fluid. 

When w 7 e consider, however, the manner in which 
the wisdom of the Creator, even in those cases in 
which his care is most apparent, as in the structure 
of animals, works by means of intermediate causes 
and general laws, we shall not be ready to reject all 
belief of an end in such a case as this, merely be- 
cause the means are mechanical agencies. Laplace 
?avs, " in virtue of gravity, the most dense of the 
strata of the earth are those nearest to the centre ; 
and thus the mean density exceeds that of the w r aters 
which cover it ; which suffices to secure the stability 
of the equilibrium of the seas, and to put a bridle 
upon the fury of the waves." This statement, if 
exact, would not prove that He who subjected the 
materials of the earth to the action of gravity did 



142 



COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS. 



not intend to restrain the rage of the waters: but the 
statement is not true in fact. The lower strata, so 
far as man has yet examined, are very far from be- 
ing constantly, or even generally, heavier than the 
superincumbent ones. And certainly solidification 
by no means implies a greater density than fluidity : 
the density of Jupiter is one fourth, that of Saturn 
less than one seventh, of that of the earth. If an 
ocean of water were poured into the cavities upon 
the surface of Saturn, its equilibrium would not be 
stable. It would leave its bed on one side of the 
globe ; and the planet would finally be composed of 
one hemisphere of water and one of land. If the 
Earth had an ocean of a fluid six times as heavy as 
water, (quicksilver is thirteen times as heavy,) we 
should have, in like manner, a dry and a fluid hemi- 
sphere. Our inland rivers would probably never be 
able to reach the shores, but would be dried up on 
their way, like those which run in torrid desarts ; 
perhaps the evaporation from the ocean would 
never reach the inland mountains, and we should 
have no rivers at all. Without attempting to 
imagine the details of such a condition, it is easy to 
see, that to secure the existence of a different one is 
an end which is in harmony with all that we see of 
the preserving care displayed in the rest of crea- 
tion.* 

f The stability of the axis of rotation about which the earth 
revolves, has sometimes been adduced as an instance of preserva- 
tive care. The stability, however, would follow necessarily, if 
the earth, or its superficial parts, were originally fluid ; and that 
they were so is an opinion widely received, both among astrono- 
mers and geologists. The original fluidity of the earth is proba- 
bly a circumstance depending upon the general scheme of crea- 
tion ; and cannot with propriety be considered with reference to 
one particular result. We shall therefore omit any further con- 
sideration of this argument, 



143 



CHAPTER VII. 

The Nebular Hypothesis. 

We have referred to Laplace, as a profound ma- 
thematician, who has strongly expressed the opinion, 
that the arrangement by which the stability of the 
solar system is secured is not the result of chance ; 
that " a primitive cause has directed the planetary 
motions." This author, however, having arrived, as 
we have done, at this conviction, does not draw from 
it the conclusion which has appeared to us so irre- 
sistible, that "the admirable arrangement of the solar 
system cannot but be the work of an intelligent and 
most powerful being." He quotes these expressions, 
which are those of Newton, and points at them as 
instances where that great philosopher had deviated 
from the method of true philosophy. He himself pro- 
poses an hypothesis concerning the nature of the 
primitive cause of which he conceives the existence 
to be thus probable : and this hypothesis, on account 
of the facts which it attempts to combine, the view 
of the universe which it presents, and the eminence 
of the person by whom it is propounded, deserves 
our notice. 

1. Laplace conjectures that in the original condi- 
tion of the solar system, the sun revolved upon his 
axis, surrounded by an atmosphere which, in virtue 
of an excessive heat, extended far beyond the orbits 

i of all the planets, the planets as yet having no exist- 
ence. The heat gradually diminished, and as the 

i i solar atmosphere contracted by cooling, the rapidity 
of its rotation increased by the laws of rotatory mo- 
tion, and an exterior zone of vapour was detached 
from the rest, the central attraction being no longer 
able to overcome the increased centrifugal force. 



144 



COSMXCAL ARRANGEMENTS. 



This zone of vapour might in some cases retain its 
form, as we see it in Saturn's ring ; but more usually 
the ring of vapour would break into several masses, 
and these would generally coalesce into one mass, 
which would revolve about the sun. Such portions 
of the solar atmosphere, abandoned successively at 
different distances, would form " planets in the state 
of vapour." These planets, it appears from mecha- 
nical considerations, would have each its rotatory 
motion, and as the cooling of the vapour still went 
on, would each produce a planet, which might have 
satellites and rings, formed from the planet in the 
same manner as the planets were formed from the 
atmosphere of the sun. 

It may easily be conceived that all the primary 
motions of a system so produced would be nearly 
circular, nearly in the plane of the original equator 
of the solar rotation, and in the direction of that ro- 
tation. Reasons are offered also to show that the 
motions of the satellites thus produced and the mo- 
tions of rotation of the planets must be in the same 
direction. And thus it is held that the hypothesis 
accounts for the most remarkable circumstances in 
the structure of the solar system : namely, the mo- 
tions of the planets in the same direction, and almost 
in the same plane ; the motions of the satellites in the 
same direction as those of the planets ; the motions 
of rotation of these different bodies still in the same 
direction as the other motions, and in planes not 
much different ; the small eccentricity of the orbits 
of the planets, upon which condition, along with 
some of the preceding ones, the stability of the sys- 
tem depends ; and the position of the source of light 
and heat in the centre of the system. 

It is not necessary for the purpose, nor suitable to 
the plan of the present treatise, to examine, on phy- 
sical grounds, the probability of the above hypothesis. 
It is proposed by its author, with great diffidence, as 
a conjecture only. We might, therefore, very rea- 
sonably put off all discussion of the bearings of this 



NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. 



145 



opinion upon our views of the government of the 
world, till the opinion itself should have assumed a 
less indistinct and precarious form. It can be no 
charge against our doctrines, that there is a difficulty 
in reconciling with them arbitrary guesses and half- 
formed theories. We shall, however, make a few 
observations upon this nebular hypothesis, as it may 
be termed. 

2, If we grant, for a moment, the hypothesis, it by 
no means proves that the solar system was formed 
without the intervention of intelligence and design. 
It only transfers our view of the skill exercised, and 
the means employed, to another part of the work. 
For, how came the sun and its atmosphere to have 
such materials, such motions, such a constitution, 
that these consequences followed from their primor- 
dial condition? How came the parent vapour thus 
to be capable of coherence, separation, contraction, 
solidification ? How came the laws of its motion, 
attraction, repulsion, condensation, to be so fixed, as 
to lead to a beautiful and harmonious system in the 
end ? How came it to be neither too fluid nor too 
tenacious, to contract neither too quickly nor too 
slowly, for the successive formation of the several 
planetary bodies ? How came that substance, which 
at one time was a luminous vapour, to be at a subse- 
quent period, solids and fluids of many various kinds? 
What but design and intelligence prepared and tem- 
pered this previously existing element, so that it 
should by its natural changes produce such an or- 
derly system ? 

And if in this way we suppose a planet to be pro- 
duced, w r hat sort of a body would it be ? — something, 
it may be presumed, resembling a large meteoric 
stone. How comes this mass to be covered with 
motion and organization, with life .and happiness ? 
What primitive cause stocked it with plants and ani- 
mals, and produced all the wonderful and subtle con- 
trivances which we find in their structure, all the 
wide and profound mutual dependencies which we 

N 



146 



COSMtCAL ARRANGEMENTS. 



trace in their economy? Was man. with his thought 
and feeling, his powers and hopes, his will and con- 
science, also produced as an ultimate result of the 
condensation of the solar atmosphere ! Except we 
allow a prior purpose and intelligence presiding over 
this material "primitive cause." how irreconcilable 
is it with the evidence which crowds in upon us from 
every side ! 

3. In the next place, we may observe concerning 
this hypothesis, that it carries us back to the begin- 
ning of the present system of things: but that it is 
impossible for our reason to stop at the point thus 
presented to it. The sun. the earth, the planets, the 
moons were brought into their present order out of 
a previous state, and. as is supposed in the theory, by 
the natural operation of laws. But how came that 
previous state to exist ! We are compelled to sup- 
pose that it. in like manner, was educed from a still 
prior state of things : and this, again, must have been 
the result of a condition prior still. Not is it possi- 
ble for us to find, in the tenets of the nebular hypo- 
thesis, any resting place or satisfaction for the mind. 
The same reasoning faculty, which seeks for the ori- 
gin of the present system of things, and is capable of 
assenting to. or dissenting from the hypothesis pro- 
pounded by Laplace as an answer to this inquiry, is 
necessarily led to seek, in the same manner, for the 
origin of any previous system of things, out of which 
the present may appear to have grown: and must 
pursue this train of inquiries unremittingly, so long 
as the answer which it receives describes a mere as- 
semblage of matter and motion; since it would be to 
contradict the laws of matter and the nature of mo- 
tion, to suppose such an assemblage to be the first 
condition. 

The reflection just stated, may be illustrated by 
the further consideration of the Nebular Hypothesis. 
This opinion refers us. for the origin of the solar 
system, to a sun surrounded with an atmosphere of 
enormously elevated temperature, revolving and cool- 



NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. 



147 



ing. But as we ascend to a still earlier period, what 
state of things are we to suppose? — a still higher 
temperature, a still more diffused atmosphere. La- 
place conceives that, in its primitive state, the sun 
consisted in a diffused luminosity so as to resemble 
those nebulae among the fixed stars, which are seen 
by the aid of the telescope, and which exhibit a nu- 
cleus, more or less brilliant, surrounded by a cloudy 
brightness. " This anterior state was itself preceded 
by other states, in which the nebulous matter was 
more and more diffuse, the nucleus being less and 
less luminous. We arrive," Laplace says, " in this 
manner, at a nebulosity so diffuse, that its existence 
could scarcely be suspected." 

" Such is," he adds, M in fact, the first state of the 
nebulas which Herschel carefully observed by means 
of his powei'ful telescopes. He traced the progress of 
condensation, not indeed on one nebula, for this pro- 
gress can only become perceptible to us in the course 
of centuries: but in the assemblage of nebulae; much 
in the same manner as in a large forest we may 
trace the growth of trees among the examples of 
different ages which stand side by side. He saw in 
the first place the nebulous matter dispersed in 
patches, in the different parts of the sky. He saw in 
some of these patches this matter feebly condensed 
round one or more faint nuclei. In other nebulae, 
these nuclei were brighter in proportion to the sur- 
rounding nebulosity ; when by a further condensation 
the atmosphere of each nucleus becomes separate 
from the others, the result is multiple nebulous stars, 
formed by brilliant nuclei very near each other, and 
each surrounded by an atmosphere : sometimes the 
nebulous matter condensing in a uniform manner 
has produced nebulous systems which are called 
planetary. Finally, a still greater degree of conden- 
sation transforms all these nebulous systems into 
stars. The nebulae, classed according to this philo- 
sophical view, indicate with extreme probability their 



148 



COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS. 



future transformation into stars, and the anterior ne- 
bulous condition of the stars which now exist 

It appears then that the highest point to which this 
series of conjectures can conduct us, is, " an extremely 
diffused nebulosity," attended, we may suppose, by a 
far higher degree of heat, than that which, at a later 
period of the hypothetical process, keeps all the ma- 
terials of our earth and planets in a state of vapour. 
Now is it not impossible to avoid asking, whence was 
this light, this heat, this diffusion'? How came the 
laws which such a state implies, to be already in ex- 
istence 1 Whether light and heat produce their ef- 
fects bv means of fluid vehicles or otherwise, thev 
have complex and varied laws which indicate the 
existence of some subtle machinery for their action. 
When and how was this machinery constructed ? 
Whence too that enormous expansive power which 
the nebulous matter is supposed to possess I And if, 
as would seem to be supposed in this doctrine, all the 
material ingredients of the earth existed in this dif- 
fuse nebulosity, either in the state of vapour, or in 
some state of still greater expansion, whence were 
they and their properties ? how came there to be of 
each simple substance which now enters into the 
composition of the universe, just so much and no 
more ? Do we not, far more than ever, require an 
origin of this origin? an explanation of this explana- 
tion ? Whatever may be the merits of the opinion as 
a physical hypothesis, with w r hich we do not here 
meddle, can it for a moment prevent our looking be- 
yond the hypothesis, to a First Cause, an Intelligent 
Author, an origin proceeding from free volition* not 
from material necessity] 

But again: let us ascend to the highest point of the 
hypothetical progression: let us suppose the nebulosi- 
ty diffused throughout all space, so that its- course of 
running into patches is not yet begun* How are we 
to suppose it distributed ? Is it equably diffused in 
every part? clearly not; for if it were? what should 



JVEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. 



149 



cause it to gather into masses, so various in size, 
form and arrangement? The separation of the ne- 
bulous matter into distinct nebulae implies necessarily 
some original inequality of distribution ; some deter- 
mining circumstances in its primitive condition. 
Whence were these circumstances ? this inequality ? 
we are still compelled to seek some ulterior agency 
and power. 

Why must the primeval condition be one of 
change at all? Why should not the nebulous matter 
be equably diffused throughout space, and continue 
for ever in its state of equable diffusion, as it must 
do, from the absence of all cause to determine the 
time and manner of its separation? why should this 
nebulous matter grow cooler and cooler? why should 
it not retain for ever the same degree of heat, what- 
ever heat be ? If heat be a fluid, if to cool be to part 
with this fluid, as many philosophers suppose, what 
becomes of the fluid heat of the nebulous matter, as 
the matter cools down? Into what unoccupied re- 
gion does it find its way? 

Innumerable questions of the same kind might be 
asked, and the conclusion to be drawn is, that every 
new physical theory which we include in our view of 
the universe, involves us in new difficulties and per- 
plexities, if w T e try to erect it into an ultimate and 
final account of the existence and arrangement of 
the world in which we live. With the evidence of 
such theories, considered as scientific generalizations 
of ascertained facts, with their claims to a place in 
our natural philosophy, we have here nothing to do. 
But if they are put forwards as a disclosure of the 
ultimate cause of that which occurs, and as super- 
seding the necessity of looking further or higher ; if 
they claim a place in our Natural Theology, as well 
as our Natural Philosophy; we conceive that their 
pretensions will not bear a moment's examination. 

Leaving then to other persons and to future ages 
to decide upon the scientific merits of the nebular 
hypothesis, we conceive that the final fate of this 

n 2 



150 



COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS. 



opinion cannot, in sound reason, affect at all the view 
which we have been endeavouring to illustrate; — 
the view of the universe as the work of a wise and 
good Creator. Let it be supposed that the point to 
which this hypothesis leads us, is the ultimate point 
of physical science : that the farthest glimpse we can 
obtain of the material universe by our natural facul- 
ties, shows it to us occupied by a boundless abyss of 
luminous matter : still we ask, how space came to be 
thus occupied, how matter came to be thus luminous? 
If we establish by physical proofs, that the first fact 
which can be traced in the history of the world, is 
that "there was light ;" we shall still be led, even 
by our natural reason, to suppose that before this 
could occur, " God said, let there be light." 



CHAPTER VIII. 

The Existence of a Resisting Medium in the Solar 
System. 

The question of a plenum and a vacuum was for- 
merly much debated among those who speculated 
concerning the constitution of the universe; that is, 
they disputed whether the celestial and terrestrial 
spaces are absolutely full, each portion being occu- 
pied by some matter or other; or whether there are, 
between and among the material parts of the world, 
empty spaces free from all matter, however rare. 
This question was often treated by means of abstract 
conceptions and a priori reasonings; and was some- 
times considered as one in which the result of the 
struggle between rival systems of philosophy, the 
Cartesian and Newtonian for instance, was involved. 
It was conceived by some that the Newtonian doc- 
trine of the motions of the heavenly bodies, according 
to mechanical laws, required that the space in which 



RESISTING MEDIUM. 



151 



they moved should be, absolutely and metaphysically 
speaking, a vacuum. 

This, however, is not necessary to the truth of the 
Newtonian doctrines, and does not appear to have 
been intended to be asserted by Newton himself. 
Undoubtedly, according to his theory, the motions 
of the heavenly bodies were calculated on the suppo- 
sition that they do move in a space void of any resisting 
fluid ; and the comparison of the places so calculated 
with the places actually observed, (continued for a 
long course of years, and tried in innumerable cases,) 
did not show any difference which implied the exist- 
ence of a resisting fluid. The Newtonian, therefore, 
was justified in asserting that either there was no 
such fluid, or that it w r as so thin and rarefied, that no 
phenomenon yet examined by astronomers was ca- 
pable of betraying its effects. 

This was all that the Newtonian needed or ought 
to maintain; for his philosophy, founded altogether 
upon observation, had nothing to do with abstract 
possibilities and metaphysical necessities. And in 
the same manner in which observation and calcula- 
tion thus showed that there could be none but a very 
rare medium pervading the solar system, it was left 
open to observation and calculation to prove that 
there was such a medium, if any facts could be dis- 
covered which offered suitable evidence. 

Within the last few years, facts have been observ- 
- ed which show, in the opinion of some of the best 
mathematicians of Europe, that such a very rare 
medium does really occupy the spaces in which the 
planets move ; and it may be proper and interesting 
to consider the bearing of this opinion upon the views 
and arguments which we have had here to present. 

1. Reasons might be offered, founded on the uni- 
versal diffusion of light and on other grounds, for be- 
lieving that the planetary spaces cannot be entirely 
free from matter of some kind; and wherever mat- 
ter is, we should expect resistance. But the facts 
which have thus led astronomers to the conviction 



152 



COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS. 



that such a resisting medium really exists, are cer- 
tain circumstances occurring in the motion of a body 
revolving round the sun, which is now usually called 
Encke* s comet This body revolves in a very eccen- 
tric or oblong orbit, its greatest or aphelion distance 
from the sun, and its nearest, or perihelion distance, 
being in the proportion of more than ten to one. In 
this respect it agrees with other comets ; but its time 
of revolution about the sun is much less than that of 
the comets which have excited most notice ; for 
while they appear only at long intervals of years, the 
body of which we are now speaking returns to its 
perihelion every twelve hundred and eight days, or 
in about three years and one-third. Another ob- 
servable circumstance in this singular body, is its 
extreme apparent tenuity: it appears as a loose 
indefinitely formed speck of vapour, through which 
the stars are visible with no perceptible diminution 
of their brightness. This body was first seen by 
Mechain and Messier, in 1786,* but they obtained 
only two observations, whereas three, at least, are 
requisite to determine the path of a heavenly body. 
Miss Herschel discovered it again in 1795, and it 
was observed by several European astronomers. In 
1805 it was again seen, and again in 1819. Hitherto 
it was supposed that the four comets thus observed 
were all different; Encke, however, showed that the 
observations could only be explained by considering 
them as returns of the same revolving body ; and by 
doing this, well merited that his name should be as- 
sociated with the subject of his discovery. The re- 
turn of this body in 1822, was calculated beforehand, 
and observed in New South Wales, the comet being 
then in the southern part of the heavens; but on 
comparing the calculated and the observed places, 
Encke concluded that the observations could not be 
exactly explained, without supposing a resisting me- 
dium. This comet was again generally observed in 

* Airy on Encke's Comet, p. 1, note. 



RESISTING MEDIUM. 



153 



Europe in 1825 and 1828, and the circumstances of 
the last appearance were particularly favourable for 
determining the absolute amount of the retardation 
arising from the medium, which the other observa- 
tions had left undetermined. 

The effect of this retarding influence is, as might 
be supposed from what has already been said, ex- 
tremely slight; and would probably not have been 
perceptible at all, but for the loose texture and small 
quantity of matter of the revolving body. It will 
easily be conceived that a body which has perhaps 
no more solidity or coherence than a cloud of dust, 
or a wreath of smoke, will have less force to make 
its way through a fluid medium, however thin, than 
a more dense and compact body would have. In 
atmospheric air much rarefied, a bullet might pro- 
ceed for miles without losing any of its velocity, 
while such a loose mass as the comet is supposed to 
be would loose its projectile motion in the space of a 
few yards. This consideration will account for the 
circumstance, that the existence of such a medium 
has been detected by observing the motions of 
Encke's comet, though the motions of the heavenly 
bodies previously observed showed no trace of such 
an impediment. 

It will appear perhaps remarkable that a body so 
light and loose as we have described this comet to 
be, should revolve about the sun by laws as fixed and 
- certain as those which regulate the motions of those 
great and soiid masses, the Earth and Jupiter* It is 
however certain from observation, that this comet is 
acted upon by exactly the same force of solar at- 
traction, as the other bodies of the system ; and not 
only so, but that it also experiences the same kind of 
disturbing force from the action of the other planets, 
which they exercise upon each other. The effect of 
all these causes has been calculated with great care 
and labour; and the result has been an agreement 
with observation sufficiently close to show that these 
causes really act? but at the same time a residual 



154 



COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS. 



phenomenon (as Sir J. Herschel expresses it) has 
come to light: and from this has been collected the 
inference of a resisting medium. 

This medium produces a very small effect upon 
the motion of the comet, as will easily be supposed 
from what has been said. By Encke's calculation, 
it appears that the effect of the resistance, supposing 
the comet to move in the earth's orbit, would be 
about an eight hundred and fiftieth of the sun's force 
on the body. The effect of such resistance may ap- 
pear, at first sight, paradoxical ; it would be to make 
the comet move more slowly, but perform its revolu- 
tions more quickly. This, however, will perhaps be 
understood if it be considered that by moving more 
slowly the comet will be more rapidly drawn towards 
the centre, and that in this way a revolution will be 
described by a shorter path than it was before. It 
appears that in getting round the sun, the comet 
gains more in this way than it loses by the diminu- 
tion of its velocity. The case is much like that of a 
stone thrown in the air ; the stone moves more 
slowly than it would do if there were no air: but yet 
it comes to the earth sooner than it would do on that 
supposition. 

It appears that the effect of the resistance of the 
ethereal medium, from the first discovery of the 
comet up to the present time, has been to diminish 
the time of revolution by about two days : and the 
comet is ten days in advance of the place which it K 
would have reached, if there had been no resist- 
ance. 

2. The same medium which is thus shown to pro- 
duce an effect upon Encke's comet, must also act 
upon the planets which move through the same 
spaces. The effect upon the planets, however, must 
be very much smaller than the effect upon the comet, 
in consequence of their greater quantity of matter. 

It is not easy to assign any probable value, or 
even any certain limit, to the effect of the resisting 
medium upon the planets. We are entirely ignorant 



RESISTING MEDIUM. 



155 



of the comparative mass of the comet, and of any 
of the planets; and hence, cannot make any calcu- 
lation founded on such a comparison. Newton has 
endeavoured to show how small the resistance of the 
medium must be, if it exist.* The result of his cal- 
culation is, that if we take the density of the me- 
dium to be that which our air will have at two hun- 
dred miles from the earth's surface, supposing the 
law of diminution of density to go on unaltered, and 
if we suppose Jupiter to move in such a medium, he 
would in a million years lose less than a millionth 
part of his velocity. If a planet, revolving about 
the sun, were to lose any portion of its velocity by 
the effect of resistance, it would be drawn propor- 
tionally nearer the sun, the tendency towards the 
centre being no longer sufficiently counteracted by 
that centrifugal force which arises from the body's 
velocity. And if the resistance were to continue to 
act, the body would be drawn perpetually nearer 
and nearer to the centre, and would describe its re- 
volutions quicker and quicker, till at last it would 
reach the central body, and the system would cease 
to be a system. 

This result is true, however small be the velocity 
lost by resistance ; the only difference being, that 
when the resistance is small, the time requisite to 
extinguish the whole motion will be proportionally 
longer. In all cases the times which come under 
our consideration in problems of this kind, are enor- 
mous to common apprehension. Thus Encke's 
comet, according to the results of the observations 
already made, will lose, in ten revolutions, or thirty- 
three years, less than one thousandth of its velocity: 
and if this law were to continue, the velocity would 
not be reduced to one-half its present value in less 
than seven thousand revolutions or twenty-three 
thousand years. If Jupiter w r ere to lose one-millionth 
of his velocity in a million years, (which, as has been 



* Principia, b. iii, prop. x. 



156 



COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS. 



seen, is far more than can be considered in any way- 
probable,) he would require seventy millions of years 
to lose one-thousandth of the velocity; and a period 
seven hundred times as long to reduce the velocity 
to one-half. These are periods of time which quite 
overwhelm the imagination; and it is not pretended 
that the calculations are made with any pretensions 
to accuracy. But at the same time it is beyond doubt 
that though the intervals of time thus assigned to 
these changes are highly vague and uncertain, the 
changes themselves must, sooner or later, take place, 
in consequence of the existence of the resisting me- 
dium. Since there is such a retarding force perpe- 
tually acting, however slight it be, it must in the end 
destroy all the celestial motions. It may be millions 
of millions of years before the earth's retardation 
may perceptibly affect the apparent motion of the 
sun ; but still the day will come (if the same Provi- 
dence which formed the system, should permit it to 
continue so long) when this cause will entirely change 
the length of our year and the course of our seasons, 
and finally stop the earth's motion round the sun 
altogether. The smallness of the resistance, how- 
ever small we choose to suppose it, does not allow 
us to escape this certainty. There is a resisting me- 
dium; and, therefore, the movements of the solar 
system cannot go on for ever. The moment such a 
fluid is ascertained to exist, the eternity of the move- 
ments of the planets becomes as impossible as a per- 
petual motion on the earth. 

3. The vast periods which are brought under our 
consideration in tracing the effects of the resisting 
medium, harmonize with all that we learn of the 
constitution of the universe from other sources. 
Millions, and millions of millions of years are ex- 
pressions that at first sight appear fitted only to over- 
whelm and confound all our powers of thought; and 
such numbers are no doubt beyond the limits of any 
thing which we distinctly conceive. But our powers 
of conception are suited rather to the wants and 



RESI5TIXG MEDIUM. 



157 



uses of common life, than to a complete survey of 
the universe. It is in no way unlikely that the whole 
duration of the solar system should be a period im- 
measurably great in our eyes, though demonstrably 
finite. Such enormous numbers have been brought 
under our notice by all the advances we have made 
in our knowledge of nature. The srnallness of the 
objects detected by the microscope and of their 
parts: — the multitude of the stars which the best 
telescopes of modern times have discovered in the 
sky:— the duration assigned to the globe of the earth 
by geological investigation ; — all these results require 
for their probable expression, numbers, which so far 
as we see. are on the same gigantic scale as the 
number of years in which the solar system will be- 
come entirely deranged. Such calculations depend 
in some degree on our relation to the vast aggregate 
of the works of our Creator : and no person who is 
accustomed to meditate on these subjects will be sur- 
prised that the numbers which such an occasion re- 
quires should oppress our comprehension. Xo one 
who has dwelt on the thought of a universal Crea- 
and Preserver, will be surprised to find the con- 
n forced upon the mind by every new train of 
speculation, that viewed in reference to Him. our 
space is a point, our time a moment, our millions a 
handful, our permanence a quick decay. 

Our knowledge of the vast periods, both geologi- 
cal and astronomical, of which we have spoken, is 
most slight. It is in fact little more than that such 
periods exist; that the surface of the earth has. at 
wide intervals of time, undergone great changes in 
the disposition of land and water, and in the forms of 
animal life: and that the motions of the heavenly 

lies round the sun are affected, though with in- 
:eivable slowness, by a force which must end by 
deranging them altogether. It would therefore be 
rash to endeavour to establish any analogy between 
the periods thus disclosed : but we may observe that 
they agree in this, that they reduce all things to the 

o 



158 



COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS. 



general rule of finite duration. As all the geological 
states of which we find evidence in the present state 
of the earth, have had their termination, so also the 
astronomical conditions under which the revolutions 
of the earth itself proceed, involve the necessity of a 
future cessation of these revolutions. 

The contemplative person may well be struck by 
this universal law of the creation. We are in the 
habit sometimes of contrasting the transient destiny 
of man with the permanence of the forests, the moun- 
tains, the ocean, — with the unwearied circuit of the 
sun. But this contrast is a delusion of our own ima- 
gination ; the difference is after all but one of degree. 
The forest tree endures for its centuries and then 
decays; the mountains crumble and change, and 
perhaps subside in some convulsion of nature ; the 
sea retires, and the shore ceases to resound with the 
" everlasting" voice of the ocean : such reflections 
have already crowded upon the mind of the geolo- 
gist ; and it now appears that the courses of the hea- 
vens themselves are not exempt from the universal 
law of decay; that not only the rocks and the moun- 
tains, but the sun and the moon have the sentence 
" to end" stamped upon their foreheads. They enjoy 
no privilege beyond man except a longer respite. 
The ephemeron perishes in an hour; man endures 
for his three score years and ten ; an empire, a na- 
tion, numbers its centuries, it may be its thousands of 
years ; the continents and islands which its dominion 
includes have perhaps their date, as those which pre- 
ceded them have had ; and the very revolutions of 
the sky by which centuries are numbered will at last 
languish and stand still. 

To dwell on the moral and religious reflections sug- 
gested by this train of thought is not to our present 
purpose ; but we may observe that it introduces a 
homogeneity, so to speak, into the government of the 
universe. Perpetual change, perpetual progression, 
increase and diminution, appear to be the rules of 
the material world, and to prevail without exception. 



RESISTING MEDIUM. 



159 



The smaller portions of matter which we have near 
us, and the larger, which appear as luminaries at a 
vast distance, different as they are in our mode of 
conceiving them, obey the same laws of motion ; and 
these laws produce the same results; in both cases 
motion is perpetually destroyed, except it be repaired 
by some living power ; in both cases the relative rest 
of the parts of a material system is the conclusion to 
which its motion tends. 

4. It may perhaps appear to some, that this ac- 
knowledgment of the tendency of the system to de- 
rangement through the action of a resisting medium 
is inconsistent with the argument which we have 
drawn in a previous chapter, from the provisions for 
its stability. In reality, however, the two views are 
in perfect agreement, so far as our purpose is con- 
cerned. The main point which we had to urge, in 
the consideration of the stability of the system, was, 
not that it is constructed to last for ever, but that 
while it lasts, the deviations from its mean condition 
are very small. It is this property which fits the 
world for its uses. To maintain either the past or 
the future eternity of the world, does not appear con- 
sistent with physical principles, as it certainly does 
not fall in with the convictions of the religious man, 
in whatever way obtained. We conceive that this 
state of things has had a beginning ; we conceive that 
it will have an end. But in the mean time we find 
it fitted, by a number of remarkable arrangements, 
to be the habitation of living creatures. The condi- 
tions which secure the stability, and the smallness of 
the perturbations of the system, are among these pro- 
visions. If the eccentricity of the orbit of Venus, or 
of Jupiter, were much greater than it is, not only 
might some of the planets, at the close of ages, fall 
into the sun or fly off into infinite space, but also, in 
the intermediate time, the earth's orbit might become 
much more eccentric ; the course of the seasons and 
the average of temperature might vary from what 
they now are, so as to injure or destroy the whole 



160 



COSMXCAL ARRANGEMENTS- 



organic creation. By certain original arrangements 
these destructive oscillations are prevented. So long 
as the bodies continue to revolve, their orbits will 
not be much different from what they now are. And 
this result is not affected by the action of the resist- 
ing medium. Such a medium cannot increase the 
small eccentricities of the orbits. The range of the 
periodical oscillations of heat and cold will not be 
extended by the mechanical effect of the medium, 
nor would be, even if its density were incomparably 
greater than it is. The resisting medium therefore 
does not at all counteract that which is most import- 
ant in the provision for the permanency of the solar 
system. If the stability of the system had not been 
secured by the adjustments which we described in a 
former chapter, the course of the seasons might have 
been disturbed to an injurious or even destructive 
extent in the course of a few centuries, or even within 
the limits of one generation ; by the effect of the re- 
sisting medium, the order of nature remains un- 
changed for a period, compared with which the 
known duration of the human race is insignificant. 

But, it may be objected, the effect of the medium 
must be ultimately to affect the duration of the earth's 
revolution round the sun, and thus to derange those 
adaptations which depend on the length of the yean 
And, without question, if we permit ourselves to look 
forward to that inconceivably distant period at which 
the effect of the medium will become sensible, this 
must be allowed to be true, as has been already 
stated. Millions, and probably millions of millions, 
of years express inadequately the distance of time at 
which this cause would produce a serious effect. 
That the machine of the universe is so constructed 
that it may answer its purposes for such a period, is 
surely sufficient proof of the skill of its workmanship* 
and of the reality of its purpose : and those persons, 
probably, who are best convinced that it is the work 
of a wise and good Creator, will be least disposed to 



RESISTING MEDIUM. 



161 



consider the system as imperfect, because in its pre- 
sent condition it is not fitted for eternity. 

5. The doctrine of a Resisting Medium leads us 
towards a point which the Nebular Hypothesis as- 
sumes ; — a beginning of the present order of things. 
There must have been a commencement of the mo- 
tions now going on in the solar system. Since these 
motions, when once begun, would be deranged and 
destroyed in a period which, however large, is yet 
finite, it is obvious w r e cannot carry their origin in- 
definitely backwards in a range of past duration. 
There is a period in which these revolutions, when 
ever they had begun, w r ould have brought the re- 
volving bodies into contact with the central mass ; 
and this period has in our system not yet elapsed. 
The watch is still going, and therefore it must have 
been wound up within a limited time. 

The solar system, at this its beginning, must have 
been arranged and put in motion by some cause. If 
we suppose this cause to operate by means of the 
configurations and the properties of previously exist- 
ing matter, these configurations must have resulted 
from some still previous cause, these properties must 
have produced some previous effects. We are thus^ 
led to a condition still earlier than the assumed be- 
ginning;— to an origin of the original state of the 
universe; and in this manner we are carried per- 
petually further and further back, through a labyrinth 
of mechanical causation, without any possibility of 
finding any thing in which the mind can acquiesce 
or rest, till we admit " a First Cause which is not 
mechanical." 

Thus the argument which w T as before urged against 
those in particular, who put forwards the Nebular Hy- 
pothesis in opposition to the admission of an Intelli- 
gent Creator, offers itself again, as cogent in itself, 
when we adopt the opinion of a resisting medium, 
for which the physical proofs have been found to be 
so strong. The argument is indeed forced upon our 
minds, what ever view r we take of the past history of 

o2 



162 



C0SM1CAL ARRANGEMENTS. 



the universe. Some have endeavoured to evade its 
force by maintaining that the world as it now exists 
has existed from eternity, They assert that the pre- 
sent order of things, or an order of things in some 
way resembling the present, produced by the same 
causes, governed by the same laws, has prevailed 
through an infinite succession of past ages. We shall 
not dwell upon any objections to this tenet which 
might be drawn from our own conceptions, or from 
what may be called metaphysical sources. Nor shall 
we refer to the various considerations which history, 
geology, and astronomical records supply, and which 
tend to show, not only that the past duration of the 
present course of things is finite, but that it is short, 
compared wdth such periods as we have had to speak 
of. But we may observe, that the doctrine of a re- 
sisting medium once established, makes this imagina- 
tion untenable ; compels us to go back to the origin, 
not only of the present course of the world, not only 
of the earth, but of the solar system itself ; and thus 
sets us forth upon that path of research into the se- 
ries of past causation, where we obtain no answer of 
which the meaning corresponds to our questions, till 
we rest in the conclusion of a most provident and 
most powerful Creating Intelligence. 

It is related of Epicurus that when a boy, reading 
with his preceptor these verses of Hesiod, 

Htfoc fisv Ttpcoft^a Xao$ yevts'', cwtap ertsi'ta 

Eldest of beings, Chaos first arose, 

Thence Earth wide stretched, the steadfast seat of all 

The Immortals, 

the young scholar first betrayed his inquisitive genius 
by asking "And chaos whence ?" When in his riper 
years he had persuaded himself that this question was 
sufficiently answered by saying that chaos arose from 
the concourse of atoms, it is strange that the same 



MECHANICAL LAWS. 



16S 



inquisitive spirit did not again suggest the question 
" and atoms whence?" And it is clear that however 
often the question " whence V 9 had been answered, it 
would still start up as at first Nor could it suffice 
as an answer to say, that earth, chaos, atoms, were 
portions of a series of changes which went back to 
eternity. The preceptor of Epicurus informed him, 
that to be satisfied on the subject of his inquiry, he 
must have recourse to the philosophers. If the young 
speculator had been told that chaos (if chaos indeed 
preceded the present order) was produced by an 
Eternal Being, in whom resided purpose and will, 
he would have received a suggestion which, duly 
matured by subsequent contemplation, might have 
led him to a philosophy far more satisfactory than 
the material scheme can ever be, to one who looks, 
either abroad into the universe, or within into his 
own bosom. 



CHAPTER IX, 

Mechanical Laws, 

In the preceding observations we have supposed 
the laws, by which different kinds of matter act and 
I are acted upon, to be already in existence ; and have 
endeavoured to point out evidences of design and 
adaptation, displayed in the selection and arrange- 
ment of these materials of the universe. These ma- 
terials are, it has appeared, supplied in such measures 
and disposed in such forms, that by means of their 
properties and laws the business of the w T orld goes 
on harmoniously and beneficially. But a further 
question occurs: how came matter to have such 
properties and laws ? Are these also to be considered 
as things of selection and institution 1 And if so, can 
we trace the reasons why the laws w r ere established 



164 



COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS. 



in their present form ; why the properties which mat- 
ter actually possesses were established and bestowed 
and bestowed upon it? We have already attempted, 
in a previous part of this work, to point out some of 
the advantages which are secured by the existing 
laws of heat, light and moisture. Can we, in the 
same manner, point out the benefits which arise from 
the present constitution of those laws of matter which 
are mainly concerned in the production of cosmical 
phenomena ? 

It will readily be perceived that the discussion of 
this point must necessarily require some effort of ab- 
stract thought. The laws and properties of w T hich 
we have here to speak, the laws of motion and the 
universal properties of matter, are so closely inter- 
woven with our conceptions of the external world, 
that we have great difficulty in conceiving them not 
to exist, or to exist other than they are. When we 
press or lift a stone, we can hardly imagine that it 
could, by possibility, do otherwise than resist our 
effort by its hardness and by its heaviness, qualities 
so familiar to us: when we throw it, it seems inevit- 
able that its motion should depend on the impulse we 
give, just as w r e find that it invariably does. 

Nor is it easy to say how far it is really possible to 
suppose the fundamental attributes of matter to be 
different from what they are. If we, in our thoughts, 
attempt to divest matter of its powers of resisting 
and moving, it ceases to be matter, according to our 
conceptions, and we can no longer reason upon it 
with any distinctness. And yet it is certain that we 
can conceive the laws of hardness and weight and 
motion to be quite different from what they are, and 
can point out some of the consequences which would 
result from such difference. The properties of mat- 
ter, even the most fundamental and universal ones, 
do not obtain by any absolute necessity, resembling 
that which belongs to the properties of geometry. A 
line touching a circle is necessarily perpendicular to 
a line drawn to the centre through the point touch- 



MECHANICAL LAWS. 



165 



ed ; for it may be shown that the contrary involves 
a contradiction, But there is no contradiction in 
supposing that a body's motion should naturally 
diminish, or that its weight should increase in remov- 
ing further from the earth's centre. 

Thus the properties of matter and the laws of mo- 
tion are what we find them, not by virtue of any in- 
ternal necessity which we can understand. The 
study of such laws and properties may therefore dis- 
close to us the character of that external agency by 
which we conceive them to have been determined to 
be what they are; and this must be the same agency 
by which all other parts of the constitution of the 
universe were appointed and ordered. 

But we can hardly expect, with regard to such 
subjects, that we shall be able to obtain any complete 
or adequate view of the reasons why these general 
laws are so selected, and so established. These laws 
are the universal basis of all operations which go on, 
at any moment, in every part of space, with regard 
to every particle of matter, organic and inorganic. 
All other laws and properties must have a reference 
to these, and must be influenced by them ; both such 
as men have already discovered, and the far greater 
number which remain still unknown. The general 
economy and mutual relations of all parts of the uni- 
verse, must be subordinate to the laws of motion and 
matter of which we here speak. We can easily sup- 
■ pose that the various processes of nature, and the 
dependencies of various creatures, are affected in the 
most comprehensive manner by these laws; — are 
simplified by their simplicity, made consistent by 
their universality; rendered regular by their symme- 
! try. We can easily suppose that in this way there may 
I be the most profound and admirable reasons for the 
I existence of the present universal properties of mat- 
ter, which we cannot apprehend in consequence of 
the limited nature of our knowledge, and of our facul- 
ties. For, compared with the whole extent of the 
universe, the whole aggregate of things and relations 



166 



COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS. 



and connexions which exist in it, our knowledge is 
most narrow and partial, most shallow and super- 
ficial. We cannot suppose, therefore, that the rea- 
sons which we discover for the present form of the 
laws of nature go nearly to the full extent, or to the 
bottom of the reasons, which a more complete and 
profound insight would enable us to perceive. To 
do justice to such reasons, would require nothing less 
than a perfect acquaintance with the whole constitu- 
tion of every part of creation ; a knowledge w r hich 
man has not, and, so far as we can conceive, never 
can have. 

We are certain, therefore, that our views, with 
regard to this part of our subject, must be imperfect 
and limited. Yet still man has some knowledge with 
regard to various portions of nature ; and with re- 
gard to those most general and comparatively simple 
facts to which we now refer, his knowledge is more 
comprehensive, and goes deeper than it does in any 
other province. We conceive, therefore, that we 
shall not be engaged in any rash or presumptuous 
attempt, if we endeavour to point out some of the 
advantages which are secured by the present consti- 
tution of some of the general mechanical laws of na- 
ture ; and to suggest the persuasion of that purpose 
and wise design, which the selection of such laws 
will thus appear to imply. 



CHAPTER X. 

The Law of Gravitation. 

We shall proceed to make a few observations on 
the Law of Gravity, in virtue of which the motions 
of planets about the sun, and of satellites about their 
planets take place ; and by which also are produced 



LAW OF GRAVITATION. 



167 



the fall downwards of all bodies within our reach, 
and the pressure which they exert upon their sup- 
ports when at rest. The identification of the latter 
forces with the former, and the discovery of the sin- 
gle law by which these forces are everywhere regu- 
• lated, was the great discovery of Newton : and we 
wish to make it appear that this law is established by 
an intelligent and comprehensive selection. 

The law of the sun's attraction upon the planets 
is, that this attraction varies inversely as the square 
of the distance; that is, it decreases as that square 
increases. If we take three points or planets of the 
solar system, the distances of which from the sun are 
in proper proportion one, two, three ; the attractive 
force which the sun at these distances exercises, is 
as one, one-fourth, and one-ninth respectively. In 
the smaller variations of distance which occur in the 
elliptical motion of one planet, the variations of the 
force follow the same law. Moreover, not only does 
the sun attract the planets, but they attract each 
other according to the same law ; the tendency to 
the earth which makes bodies heavy, is one of the 
effects of this law: and all these effects of the attrac- 
tions of large masses may be traced to the attractions 
of the particles of which they are composed; so that 
the final generalization, including all the derivative 
laws, is, that every particle of matter in the universe 
attracts every other, according to the law r of the in- 
verse square of the distance. 

Such is the law of universal gravitation. Now, 
the question is, why do either the attractions of 
masses, or those of their component particles, follow 
this law of the inverse square of the distance rather 
than any other ? When the distance becomes one, 
two, and three, why should not the force also become 
one, two, and three? — or if it must be weaker at 
points more remote from the attracting body, why 
should it not be one, a half, a third? or one, an eighth, 
a twenty-seventh? Such laws could easily be ex- 
pressed mathematically, and their consequences cal- 



168 



COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS. 



culated. Can any reason be assigned why the law 
which we find in operation must obtain? Can any 
be assigned why it should obtain 1 

The answer to this is, that no reason, at ali satis- 
factory, can be given why such a law must, of ne- 
cessity, be what it is ; but that very strong reasons 
can be pointed out why, for the beauty and advan- 
tage of the system, the present one is better than 
others. We will point out some of these reasons. 

1. In the first place, the system could not have 
subsisted, if the force had followed a direct instead 
of an inverse law, with respect to the distance; that 
is, if it had increased when the distance increased. 
It has been sometimes said, that " all direct laws of 
force are excluded on account of the danger from 
perturbing forces that if the planets had pulled at 
this earth, the harder the further off they were, they 
would have dragged it entirely out of its course. 
This is not an exact statement of what would hap- 
pen : if the force were to be simply in the direct 
ratio of the distance, any number of planets might 
revolve in the most regular and orderly manner. 
Their mutual effects, which we may call perturba- 
tions if we please, would be considerable ; but these 
perturbations would be so combined with the unper- 
turbed motion, as to produce a new motion not less 
regular than the other. This curious result would 
follow, that every body in the system would describe, 
or seem to describe, about every other, an exact 
elliptical orbit; and that the times of the revolution 
of every body in its orbit would be all equal. This 
is proved by Newton, in the sixty-fourth proposition 
of the Principia. There would be nothing to prevent 
all the planets, on this supposition, from moving 
round the sun in orbits exactly circular, or nearly 
circular, according to the mode in which they were 
set in motion. 

But though the perturbations of the system would 



* Paley. 



LAW OF GRAVITATION. 



169 



not make this law inadmissible, there are other cir- 
cumstances which wxmld do so. Under this law, the 
gravity of bodies at the earth's surface would cease 
to exist. Nothing would fall or weigh downwards. 
The greater action of the distant sun and planets 
would exactly neutralize the gravity of the earth : a 
ball thrown from the hand, however gently, would 
immediately become a satellite of the earth, and 
would for the future accompany it in its course, re- 
volving about it in the space of one year. All ter- 
restrial things would float about with no principle of 
coherence or stability: they would obey the general 
law of the system, but would acknowledge no par- 
ticular relation to the earth. W e can hardly pretend 
to judge of the abstract possibility of such a system 
of things ; but it is clear that it could not exist with- 
out an utter subversion of all that we can conceive 
of the economy and structure of the world w r hich we 
inhabit 

With any other direct law of force, we should in 
like manner lose gravity, without gaining the theo- 
retical regularity of the planetary motions which w T e 
have described in the case just considered. 

2. Among inverse laws of the distance, (that is, 
those according to which the force diminishes as the 
distance from the origin of force increases,) all which 
! diminish the central force faster than the cube of the 
distance increases are inadmissible, because they are 
incompatible with the permanent revolution of a 
planet. Under such laws it would follow, that a 
planet would describe a spiral line about the sun, 
i and would either approach nearer and nearer to 
I him perpetually, or perpetually go further and fur- 
; ther off: nearly as a stone at the end of a string, 
when the string is whirled round, and is allowed to 
wrap round the hand, or to unwrap from it, ap- 
proaches to or recedes from the hand. 

If we endeavour to compare the law of the inverse 
square of the distance, which really regulates the 
central force, with other laws, not obviously inad- 

p 



170 



COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS. 



missible, as for instance, the inverse simple ratio of 
the distance, a considerable quantity of calculation 
is found to be necessary in order to trace the results, 
and especially the perturbations in the two cases. 
The perturbations in the supposed case have not 
been calculated ; such a calculation being a process 
so long and laborious that it is never gone through, 
except for the purpose of comparing the results of 
theory with those of observation^ as we can do with 
regard to the law of inverse square. We can only 
say, therefore, that the stability of the system, and 
the moderate limits of the perturbations, which we 
know to be secured by the existing law, w T ould not, 
so far as we know, be obtained by any different law. 

Without going into further examination of the 
subject, we may observe that there are some circum- 
stances in w T hich the present system has a manifest 
superiority in its simplicity over the condition which 
would have belonged to it if the force had followed 
any other law. Thus, with the present law of gra- 
vitation the planets revolve, returning perpetually on 
the same track, very nearly. The earth describes 
an oval, in consequence of which motion she is 
nearer to the sun in our winter than in our summer 
by about one-thirtieth part of the whole distance. 
And, as the matter now is, the nearest approach to 
the sun, and the farthest recess from him, occur al- 
ways at the same points of the orbit. There is in- 
deed a slight alteration in these points arising from 
disturbing forces, but this is hardly sensible in the 
course of several ages. Now T if the force had follow- 
ed any other law, we should have had the earth run- 
ning perpetually on a new track. The greatest and 
least distances would have occurred at different 
parts in every successive revolution. The orbit, 
would have perpetually intersected and been inter- 
laced with the path described in former revolutions; 
and the simplicity and regularity which charac- 
terizes the present motion would have been quite 
wanting. 



LAW Or GRAVITATION. 



171 



3. Another peculiar point of simplicity in the pre- 
sent law of mutual attraction is this : that it makes 
the law of attraction for spherical masses the same 
as for single particles. If particles attract with 
forces which are inversely as the square of the dis- 
tance, spheres composed of such particles, will exert 
a force w r hich follows the same law. In this charac- 
ter the present law is singular, among all possible 
laws, excepting that of the direct distance which w r e 
have already discussed. If the law 7 of the gravita- 
tion of particles had been that of the inverse simple 
distance, the attraction of a sphere would have been 
expressed by a complex series of mathematical ex- 
pressions, each representing a simple law. It is truly 
remarkable that the law of the inverse square of the 
distance, which appears to be selected as that of the 
masses of the system, and of which the mechanism 
is, that it arises from the action of the particles of 
the system, should lead us to the same law for the 
action of these particles: there is a striking preroga- 
tive of simplicity in the law thus adopted. 

The law of gravitation actually prevailing in the 
solar system has thus great and clear advantages 
over any law widely different from it; and has more- 
over, in many of its consequences, a simplicity which 
belongs to this precise law alone. It is in many such 
respects a unique law; and when we consider that it 
possesses several properties which are peculiar to it, 
and several advantages which may be peculiar to it, 
and which are certainly nearly so ; we have some 
ground, it would appear, to look upon its peculiari- 
ties and its advantages as connected. For the rea- 
sons mentioned in the last chapter, we can hardly 
expect to see fully the way in which the system is 
benefited by the simplicity of this law, and by the 
mathematical elegance of its consequences: but when 
we see that it has some such beauties, and some ma- 
nifest benefits, we may easily suppose that our ignor- 
ance and limited capacity alone prevent our seeing 
that there are, for the selection of this law of force, 



172 



COSMTCAL ARRANGEMENTS. 



reasons of a far more refined and comprehensive 
kind than we can distinctly apprehend. 

4. But before quitting this subject we may offer a 
few further observations on the question, whether 
gravitation and the law of gravitation be necessary 
attributes of matter. We have spoken of the selec- 
tion of this law. but is it selected ? Could it have 
been otherwise ? Is not the force of attraction a 
necessary consequence of the fundamental proper- 
ties of matter ? 

This is a question which has been much agitated 
among the followers of Newton. Some have main- 
tained, as Cotes, that gravity is an inherent proper- 
ty of all matter: others, with Newton himself have 
considered it as an appendage to the essential quali- 
ties of matter, and have proposed hypotheses to 
account for the mode in which its effects are pro- 
duced. 

The result of all that can be said on the subject 
appears to be this : that no one can demonstrate the 
possibility of deducing gravity from the acknow- 
ledged fundamental properties of matter : and that 
no philosopher asserts, that matter has been found 
to exist, which was destitute of gravity. It is a pro- 
perty which we have no right to call necessary to 
matter, but every reason to suppose universal. 

If we could show gravity to be a necessary con- 
sequence of those properties which we adopt as es- 
sential to our notion of matter, (extension, solidity, 
mobility, inertia) we might then call it also one of the 
essential properties. But no one probably will assert 
that this is the case. Its universality is a fact of 
observation merely. How then can a property, — in 
its existence so needful for the support of the uni- 
verse, in its laws so well adapted to the purposes of 
creation, — how came it to be thus universal ? Its 
being found every where is necessary for its uses ; 
but this is so far from being a sufficient explanation 
of its existence, that it is an additional fact to be 
explained. We have here, then, an agency most 



LAW OF GRAVITATION. 



173 



simple in its rule, most comprehensive in its in- 
fluence, most effectual and admirable in its opera- 
tion. What evidence could be afforded of design, 
by laws of mechanical action, which this law thus 
existing and thus operating does not afford us ? 

5. It is not necessary for our purpose to consider 
the theories which have been proposed to account 
for the action of gravity. They have proceeded on 
the plan of reducing this action to the result of pres- 
sure or impulse. Even if such theories could be 
established, they could not much, or at all, affect 
our argument ; for the arrangements by which pres- 
sure or impact could produce the effects which gra- 
vity produces, must be at least as clearly results of 
contrivance, as gravity itself can be. 

In fact, however, none of these attempts can be 
considered as at all successful. That of Newton is 
very remarkable : it is found among the Queries in 
the second edition of his Optics. " To show," he 
says, " that I do not take gravity for an essential 
property of bodies, I have added one question con- 
cerning its cause, choosing to propose it by way of 
question, because I am not yet satisfied about it for 
want of experiments." The hypothesis which he 
thus suggests is, that there is an elastic medium per- 
vading all space, and increasing in elasticity as we 
proceed from dense bodies outwards : that this 
" causes the gravity of such dense bodies to each 
other: every body endeavouring to go from the 
denser parts of the medium tow r ards the i*arer." Of 
this hypothesis we may venture to say, that it is in 
the first place quite gratuitous ; we cannot trace in 
any other phenomena a medium possessing these 
properties : and in the next place, that the hypothe- 
sis contains several suppositions which are more 
complex than the fact to be explained, and none 
w T hich are less so. Can we, on Newton's principles, 
conceive an elastic medium otherwise than as a col- 
lection of particles, repelling each other ? and is the 
repulsion of such particles a simpler fact than the 
p2 



174 



COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS, 



attraction of those which gravitate ? And when we 
suppose that the medium becomes more elastic as we 
proceed from each attracting body, what cause can 
we conceive capable of keeping it in such a condi- 
tion, except a repulsive force emanating from the 
body itself : a supposition at least as much requiring 
to be accounted for, as the attraction of the body. 
It does not appear, then, that this hypothesis will 
bear examination ; although, for our purpose, the ar- 
gument would be rather strengthened than weaken- 
ed, if it could be established. 

6. Another theory of the cause of gravity, which 
at one time excited considerable notice, was that ori- 
ginally proposed by M. Le Sage, in a memoir enti- 
ted " Lucrece Newtonien," and further illustrated by 
M. Prevost ; according to which all space is occu- 
pied by currents of matter, moving perpetually in 
straight lines, in all directions, with a vast velocity, 
and penetrating all bodies. When two bodies are 
near each other, they intercept the current which 
would flow in the intermediate space if they were 
not there, and thus receive a tendency towards each 
other from the pressure of the currents on their 
farther sides. Without examining further this cu- 
rious and ingenious hypothesis, we may make upon 
it the same kind of observations as before; — that it 
is perfectly gratuitous, except as a means of explain- 
ing the phenomena; and that, if it were proved, it 
would still remain to be shown what necessity has 
caused the existence of these two hinds of matter : 
the first kind being that which is commonly called 
matter, and which alone affects our senses, while it 
is inert as to any tendency to motion ; the second 
kind being something imperceptible to our senses, 
except by the effects it produces on matter of the 
former kind ; yet exerting an impulse on every ma- 
terial body, permeating every portion of common 
matter, flowing with inconceivable volocity, in inex- 
haustible abundance, from every part of the abyss of 
infinity on one side, to the opposite part of the same 



LAW OF GRAVITATION". 



175 



abyss ; and so constituted that through all eternity it 
can never bend its path, or return, or tarry in its 
course. 

If we were to accept this theory, it would little or 
nothing diminish our wonder at the structure of the 
universe. We might well continue to admire the evi- 
dence of contrivance, if such a machinery should be 
found to produce all the effects which flow from the 
law of gravitation. 

7. The arguments for and against the necessity of 
the law r of the inverse square of the distance in the 
force of gravity, were discussed with great anima- 
tion about the middle of the last century. Clairault, 
an eminent mathematician, who did more than al- 
most any other person for the establishment and de- 
velopment of the Newtonian doctrines, maintained, 
at one period of his researches, not only that the in- 
verse square was not the necessary law, but also that 
it was nor the true law. The occasion of this con- 
troversy was somewhat curious. 

Newton and other astronomers had found that the 
line of the moon's apsides (that is of her greatest and 
least distances from the earth) moves round to dif- 
ferent parts of the heavens with a velocity twice as 
great as that which the calculation from the law of 
gravitation seems at first to give. According to the 
theory, it appeared that this line ought to move round 
once in eighteen years; according to observation, it 
moves round once in nine years. This difference, 
the only obvious failure of the theory of gravitation, 
embarrassed mathematicians exceedingly. It is true, 
it was afterwards discovered that the apparent dis- 
crepancy arose from a mistake ; the calculation, 
which is long and laborious, was supposed to have 
been carried far enough to get close to the truth; 
but it appeared afterwards that the residue which 
had been left out as insignificant, produced, by an 
unexpected turn in the reckoning, an effect as large 
as that which had been taken for the whole. But 
this discovery was not made till afterwards; and in 



176 



COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS* 



the mean time the law of the inverse square appeared 
to be at fault. Clairault tried to remedy the defect 
by supposing that the force of the earth's gravity con- 
sisted of a large force varying as the square of the 
distance, and a very small force varying as the fourth 
power (the square of the square.) By such a suppo- 
sition, observation and theory could be reconciled ; 
but on the suggestion of it, BufFon came forward 
with the assertion that the force could not vary ac- 
cording to any other law than the inverse square. 
His arguments are rather metaphysical than physi- 
cal or mathematical. Gravity, he urges, is a quality, 
an emanation ; and all emanations are inversely as 
the square of the distance, as light, odours. To this 
Clairault replies by asking, how we know that light 
and odours have their intensity inversely as the 
square of the distance from their origin : not, he ob- 
serves, by measuring the intensity, but by supposing 
these effects to be material emanations. But who, 
he asks, supposes gravity to be a material emanation 
from the attracting body. 

Buffon again pleads that so many facts prove the 
law of the inverse square, that a single one, which 
occurs to interfere with this agreement, must be in 
some manner capable of being explained away. 
Clairault replies, that the facts do not prove this law 
to obtain exactly; that small effects, of the same or- 
der as the one under discussion, have been neglected; 
and that therefore the law is only known to be true, 
as far as such an approximation goes, and no farther. 

Buffon then argues, that there can be no such ad- 
ditional fraction of the force, following a different 
law, as Clairault supposes : for what, he asks, is there 
to determine the magnitude of the fraction to one 
amount rather than another? why should nature se- 
lect for it any particular magnitude ? To this it is re- 
plied, that, whether we can explain the fact or not, 
nature does select certain magnitudes in preference 
to others: that where we ascertain she does this, we 
are not to deny the fact because we cannot assign the 



LAW OF GRAVITATION. 177 

grounds of her preference. What is there, it is asked, 
to determine the magnitude of the whole force at 
any fixed distance ? We cannot tell ; yet the force is 
of a certain definite intensity and no other. 

Finally, Clairault observes, that we have, in cohe- 
sion, capillary attraction, and various other cases, 
examples of forces varying according to other laws 
than the inverse square ; and that therefore this can- 
not be the only possible law. 

The discrepancy between observation and theory 
which gave rise to this controversy was removed, as 
has been already stated, by a more exact calcula- 
tion: and thus, as Laplace observes, in this case the 
metaphysician turned out to be right and the mathe- 
matician to be wrong. But most persons, probably, 
who are familiar with such trains of speculation, will 
allow, that Clairault had the best of the argument, 
and that the attempts to show the law of gravitation 
to be necessarily what it is, are fallacious and un- 
sound. 

8. We may observe, however, that the law of gra- 
vitation according to the inverse square of the dis- 
tance, which thus regulates the motions of the solar 
system, is not confined to that province of the uni- 
verse, as has been shown by recent researches. It 
appears by the observations and calculations of Sir 
John Herschel, that several of the stars, called double 
stars, consist of a pair of luminous bodies which re- 
volve above each other in ellipses, in such a manner 
as to show that the force, by which they are attract- 
ed to each other, varies according to the law of the 
inverse square. We thus learn a remarkable fact 
I concerning bodies which seemed so far removed that 
no effort of our science could reach them ; and we 
find that the same law of mutual attraction which w r e 
have before traced to the farthest bounds of the solar 
system, prevails also in spaces at a distance compared 
with which the orbit of Saturn shrinks into a point. 
The establishment of such a truth certainly suggests, 
as highly probable, the prevalence of this law among 



178 



COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS. 



all the bodies of the universe. And we may there- 
fore suppose, that the same ordinance which gave to 
the parts of our system that rule by which they fulfil 
the purposes of their creation, impressed the same 
rule on the other portions of matter which are scat- 
tered in the most remote parts of the universe ; and 
thus gave to their movements the same grounds of 
simplicity and harmony which we find reason to ad- 
mire, as far as we can acquire any knowledge of our 
own more immediate neighbourhood. 



CHAPTER XL 
The Laws of Motion. 

We shall now make a few remarks on the general 
Laws of Motion by which all mechanical effects take 
take place. Are we to consider these as instituted 
laws ? and if so, can we point out any of the reasons 
w T hich we may suppose to have led to the selection 
of those laws which really exist? 

The observations formerly made concerning the 
inevitable narrowness and imperfection of our con- 
clusions on such subjects, apply here, even more 
strongly than in the case of the law of gravitation. 
We can hardly conceive matter divested of these 
laws ; and w r e cannot perceive or trace a millionth 
part of the effects w T hich they produce. We cannot, 
therefore, expect to go far in pointing out the advan- 
tages of these laws such as they now 7 obtain. 

It w T ould be easy to show that the fundamental 
laws of motion, in whatever form we state them, 
possess a very preeminent simplicity, compared with 
almost all others, which we might imagine as exist- 
ing. This simplicity has indeed produced an effect 
on men's minds which, though delusive, appears to 



THE LAWS OF MOTION". 



179 



be very natural ; several writers have treated these 
laws as self-evident, and necessarily flowing from 
the nature of our conceptions. We conceive that 
this is an erroneous view, and that these laws are 
known to us to be what they are, by experience 
only: that they might, so far as we can discern, 
have been any others. They appear therefore to be 
selected for their fitness to answer their purposes : 
and we may, perhaps, be able to point out some in- 
stances in which this fitness is apparent to us. 

Newton, and many English philosophers, teach the 
existence of three separate fundamental laws of mo- 
tion, while most of the eminent mathematicians of 
France reduce these to tubo, the law T of inertia and 
the law 7 that force is proportioned to velocity. As 
an example of the views which we wish to illustrate, 
we may take the law of inertia, which is identical 
with Newton's first Law of Motion. This law as- 
serts, that a body at rest continues at rest, and that 
a body in motion goes on moving with its velocity 
and direction unchanged, except so far as it is acted 
on by extraneous forces."* 

We conceive that this law, simple and universal 
as it is, cannot be shown to be necessarily true. It 
might be difficult to discuss this point in general 
terms with any clearness; but let us take the only 
example which we know of a motion absolutely uni- 
form, in consequence of the absence of any force to 
accelerate or retard it : — this motion is the rotation 
of the earth on its axis. 

I. It is scarcely possible that discussions on such 

* If the Laws of Motion are stated as three, which we con- 
ceive to be the true view of the subject, the other two, as applied 
in mechanical reasonings, are the following: 

Second Law. When a force acts on a body in motion, it 
produces the same effect as if the same force acted on a body at 
rest. 

Third Law. "When a force of the nature of pressure produces 
motion, the velocity produced is proportional to the force, other 
things beiogs equal. 



180 



COSMIC AL ARRANGEMENTS. 



subjects should not have a repulsive and scholastic 
aspect, and appear like disputes about words rather 
than things. For mechanical writers have exercised 
all their ingenuity so to circumscribe their notions 
and so to define their terms that these fundamental 
truths should be expressed in the simplest manner : 
the consequence of which has been, that they have 
been made to assume the appearance rather of iden- 
tical assertions than of general facts of experience. 
But in order to avoid this inconvenience, as far as 
may be, let us take the first law of motion as exempli- 
fied in a particular case, the rotation of the earth. 
Of all the motions with which we are acquainted 
this is alone invariable. Each day, measured by the 
passages of the stars, is so precisely of the same 
length that, according to Laplace's calculations, it is 
impossible that a difference of hundredth of a second 
of time should have obtained between the length of 
the day in the earliest ages and at the present time. 
Now T why is this ? How is this very remarkable uni- 
formity preserved in this particular phenomenon, 
while all the other motions of the system are subject 
to inequalities ? How is it that in the celestial ma- 
chine no retardation takes place by the lapse of time, 
as would be the case in any machine which it would 
be possible for human powers to construct ? The an- 
swer is, that in the earth's revolution on her axis no 
cause operates to retard the speed, like the imperfec- 
tion of materials, the friction of supports, the resis- 
tance of the ambient medium ; impediments which 
cannot, in any human mechanism, however perfect, 
be completely annihilated. But here we are led to 
ask again, why should the speed continue the same 
when not affected by an extraneous cause ? Why 
should it not languish and decay of itself by the mere 
lapse of time 1 That it might do so, involves no con- 
tradiction, for it was the common, though erroneous, 
belief of all mechanical speculators, to the time of 
Galileo. We can conceive velocity to diminish in 
proceeding from a certain point of time, as easily as 



THE LAWS OF MOTION. 



181 



we can conceive force to diminish in proceeding 
from a certain point of space, which in attractive 
forces really occurs. But, it is sometimes said, the 
motion (that is the velocity) must continue the same 
from one instant to another, for there is nothing to 
change it. This appears to be taking refuge in 
words. We may call the velocity, that is the speed 
of a body, its motion ; but we cannot, by giving it 
this name, make it a thing which has any a priori 
claim to permanence, much less any self-evident con- 
stancy. Why must the speed of a body, left to itself, 
continue the same, any more than its temperature? 
Hot bodies grow cooler of themselves, why should 
not quick bodies go slower of themselves ? Why must 
a body describe one thousand feet in the next second 
because it has described one thousand feet in the 
last ? Nothing but experience, under proper circum- 
stances, can inform us whether bodies, abstracting 
from external agency, do move according to such a 
rule. We find that they do so, we learn that all 
diminution of their speed which ever takes place, can 
be traced to external causes. Contrary to all that 
men had guessed, motion appears to be of itself end- 
less and unwearied. In order to account for the un- 
alterable permanence of the length of our day, all 
that is requisite is to show that there is no let or 
hindrance in the way of the earth's rotation; — no re- 
sisting medium or alteration of size,— she " spinning 
sleeps" on her axle, as the poet expresses it, and may 
go on sleeping with the same regularity for ever, so 
far as the experimental properties of motion are con- 
cerned. 

Such is the necessary consequence of the first law 
of motion ; but the law itself has no necessary ex- 
istence, so far as we can see. It was disco vered only 
after various perplexities and false conjectures of 
speculators on mechanics. We have learnt that it 
is so, but we have not learnt, nor can any one under- 
take to teach us, that it must have been so. For 
aught we can tell r it is one among a thousand equally 



182 



C0SM1CAL ARRANGEMENTS. 



possible laws, which might have regulated the mo- 
tions of bodies. 

2. But though we have thus no reason to consider 
this as the only possible law, we have good reason 
to consider it as the best, or at least as possessing all 
that we can conceive of advantage. It is the sim- 
plest conceivable of such laws. If the velocity had 
oeen compelled to change with the time, there must 
have been a law of the change, and the kind and 
amount of this change must have been determined 
by its dependence on the time and other conditions. 
This, though quite supposable, would undoubtedly 
have been more complex than the present state of 
things. And though complexity does not appear to 
embarrass the operations of the laws of nature, and 
is admitted, without scruple, when there is reason for 
it, simplicity is the usual character of such laws, and 
appears to have been a ground of selection in the 
formation of the universe, as it is a mark of beauty 
to us in our contemplation of it. 

But there is a still stronger apparent reason for the 
selection of this law of the preservation of motion. 
If the case had been otherwise, the universe must 
necessarily in the course of ages have been reduced 
to a state of rest, or at least to a state not sensibly 
differing from it. If the earth's motion, round its 
axis, had slackened by a very small quantity, for in- 
stance, by a hundredth of a second in a revolution, 
and in this proportion continued, the day would have 
been already lengthened by six hours in the six 
thousand years which have elapsed since the history 
of the world began ; and if we suppose a longer pe- 
riod to precede or to follow, the day might be in- 
creased to a month or to any length. All the adapta- 
tions which depend on the length of the day w^ould 
consequently be deranged. But this would not be 
all ; for the same law of motion is equally requisite 
for the preservation of the annual motion of the 
earth. If her motion were retarded by the estab- 
lishment of any other law instead of the existing one. 



FRICTTOX. 



183 



she would wheel nearer and nearer to the sun at 
every revolution, and at last reach the centre, like a 
falling hoop. The same would happen to the other 
planets ; and the whole solar system would, in the 
course of a certain period, be gathered into a heap 
of matter without life or motion. In the present 
state of things on the other hand, the system, as we 
have already explained, is, by a combination of re- 
markable provisions, calculated for an almost inde- 
finite existence, of undiminished fitness for its pur- 
poses. 

There are, therefore, manifest reasons, why, of all 
laws which could occupy the place of the first law 
of motion, the one which now obtains is the only one 
consistent with the durability and uniformity of the 
system; — the one, therefore, which we may naturally 
conceive to be selected by a wise contriver. And as, 
along with this, it has appeared that we have no sort 
of right to attribute the establishment of this law to 
any thing but selection, we have hero a striking evi- 
dence, to lead us to a perception of that Divine 
mind, by which means so simple are made to answer 
purposes so extensive and so beneficial. 



CHAPTER XII 

Friction* 

We shall not pursue this argument of the last 
chapter, by considering the other laws of motion in 
the same manner as we have there considered the 

* Though Friction is not concerned in any cosmical pheno- 
mena, we have thought this the proper place to introduce the 
consideration of it ; since the contrast between the cases in 
which it does act, and those in which it does not, is best illus- 
trated by a comparison of cosmical with terrestrial motions. 



184 



COSMIC AL ARRANGEMENTS. 



first, which might be done. But the facts which 
form exceptions and apparent contradictions to the 
first law of which we have been treating, and which 
are very numerous, offer, we conceive, an additional 
exemplification of the same argument ; and this we 
shall endeavour to illustrate. 

The rule that a body naturally moves for ever 
with an undiminished speed, is so far from being ob- 
viously true, that it appears on a first examination to- 
be manifestly false. The hoop of the school boy, left 
to itself, runs on a short distance, and then stops ; 
his top spins a little while, but finally flags and falls ; 
all motion on the earth appears to decay by its own 
nature; all matter which we move appears to have 
a perpetual tendency to divest itself of the velocity 
which we communicate to it. How is this recon- 
cileable with the first law of motion on which we 
have been insisting? 

It is reconciled principally by considering the ef- 
fect of Friction, Among terrestrial objects friction 
exerts an agency almost as universal and constant 
as the laws of motion themselves; an agency which 
completely changes and disguises the results of those 
laws. We shall consider some of these effects. 

It is probably not necessary to explain at any 
length the nature and operation of friction. When 
a body cannot move without causing two surfaces to 
rub together, this rubbing has a tendency to diminish 
the body's motion or to prevent it entirely. If the 
body of a carriage be placed on the earth without 
the wheels, a considerable force will be requisite in 
order to move it at all: it is here the friction against 
the ground which obstructs the motion. If the car- 
riage be placed on its wheels, a much less force will 
move it, but if moved it will soon stop : it is the fric- 
tion at the ground and at the axles which stops it : 
placed on a level rail road, with well made and well 
oiled wheels, and once put in motion, it might run a 
considerable distance alone, for the friction is here 



FRICTION. 



185 



much less ; but there is friction, and therefore the 
motion would after a time cease. 

1. The friction which we shall principally consider 
is the friction which prevents motion. So employed, 
friction is one of the most universal and important 
agents in the mechanism of our daily comforts and 
occupations. It is a force which is called into play 
to an extent incomparably greater than all the other 
forces w 7 ith which we are concerned in the course of 
our daily life. We are dependent upon it at every 
instant and in every action ; and it is not possible to 
enumerate the w r ays in which it serves us ; scarcely 
even to suggest a sufficient number of them to give 
us a true notion of its functions. 

What can appear a more simple operation than 
standing and walking? yet it is easy to see that 
without the aid of friction these simple actions w r ould 
scarcely be possible. Every one knows how difficult 
and dangerous they are when performed on smooth 
ice. In such a situation we cannot always succeed 
in standing : if the ice be very smooth, it is by no 
means easy to walk, even when the surface is per- 
fectly level ; and if it were ever so little inclined, no 
one would make the attempt. Yet walking on the 
ice and on the ground differ only in our experiencing 
more friction in the latter case. We say more, for 
there is a considerable friction even in the case of 
ice, as we see by the small distance which a stone 
slides when thrown along the surface. It is this fric- 
tion of the earth which, at every step we take, pre- 
vents the foot from sliding back ; and thus allows us 
to push the body and the other foot forwards. And 
when we come to violent bodily motions, to running, 
leaping, pulling or pushing objects, it is easily seen 
how entirely we depend upon the friction of the 
ground for our strength and force. Every one 
knows how completely powerless we become in any 
of these actions by the foot slipping. 

In the same manner it is the friction of objects to 
which the hand is applied, which enables us to hold 



186 



COSMICAL ARRAX&E3IEX TS* 



them with any degree of firmness. In gome contests 
it was formerly the custom for the combatants to rub 
their bodies with oil, that the adversary might not 
be able to keep his grasp. If the pole of the boat- 
man, the rope of the sailor, were thus smooth and 
lubricated, how weak would be the thrust and the 
pull ! Yet this would only be the removal of fric- 
tion. 

Our buildings are no less dependent on this force 
for their stability. Some edifices are erected with- 
out the aid of cement? and if the stones be large 
and well squared, such structures may be highly 
substantial and durable; even when rude and slight- 
houses so built answer the purposes of life. These 
are entirely upheld by friction, and without that agent 
they would be thrown down by the Zephyr, far more 
easily than if all the stones were lumps of ice with a 
thawing surface. But even in cases where cement 
binds the masonry, it does not take the duty of hold- 
ing it together. In consequence of the existence of 
friction, there is no constant tendency of the stones 
to separate; they are in a state of repose. If this 
were not so, if every shock and every breeze re- 
quired to be counteracted by the cement, no compo- 
sition exists which would long sustain such a wear 
and tear. The cement excludes the corroding ele- 
ments, and helps to resist extraordinary violence ; 
but it is friction which gives the habitual state of rest. 

We are not to consider friction as a small force, 
slightly modifying the effects of other agencies. On 
the contrary its amount is in most cases very great. 
When a body lies loose on the ground, the friction is 
equal to one-third or one-half, or in some cases the 
whole of its weight. But in cases of bodies support- 
ed by oblique pressure, the amount is far more enor- 
mous. In the arch of a bridge, the friction which is 
called into play between two of the vaulting stones, 
may be equal to the whole weight of the bridge. In 
such cases this conservative force is so great, that 
the common theory, which neglects it, does not help 



FRICTION". 



187 



us even to guess what will take place. According 
to the theory, certain forms of arches only will stand, 
but in practice almost any form will stand, and it is 
not easy to construct a model of a bridge which will 
fall. 

We may see the great force of friction in the 
brake, by which a large weight running down a long 
inclined plane has its motion moderated and stopt ; 
in the windlass, where a few coils of the rope round 
a cylinder sustain the stress and weight of a large 
iron anchor ; in the nail or screw which holds toge- 
ther large beams ; in the mode of raising large blocks 
of granite by an iron rod driven into a hole in the 
stone. Probably no greater forces are exercised in 
any processes in the arts than the force of friction ; 
and it is always employed to produce rest, stability, 
moderate motion. Being always ready and never 
wearied, always at hand and augmenting with the 
exigency, it regulates, controls, subdues all motions ; 
— counteracts all other agents ; — and finally gains 
the mastery over all other terrestrial agencies, how- 
ever violent, frequent, or long continued. The per- 
petual action of all other terrestrial forces appears, 
on a large scale, only as so many interruptions of 
the constant and stationary rule of friction. 

The objects which every where surround us, the 
books or dishes which stand on our tables, our tables 
and chairs themselves, the loose clods and stones in 
the field, the heaviest masses produced by nature or 
art, would be in a perpetual motion, quick or slow 
according to the forces which acted on them, and to 
their size, if it were not for the tranquillizing and 
steadying effects of the agent we are considering. 
Without this, our apartments, if they kept their 
shape, would exhibit to us articles of furniture, and 
of all other kinds, sliding and creeping from side to 
side with every push and every wind, like loose ob- 
jects in a ship's cabin, when she is changing her 
course in a gale. 

Here, then, we have a force, most extensive and 



188 



COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS. 



incessant in its operation* which is absolutely essen- 
tial to the business of this terrestrial world, accord- 
ing to any notion which we can form. The more 
any one considers its effects, and the more he will 
find how universally dependent he is upon it, in 
every action of his life ; resting or moving, dealing 
with objects of art or of nature, with instruments of 
enjoyment or of action. 

2. Now we have to observe concerning this agent, 
Friction, that we have no ground for asserting it to 
be a necessary result of other properties of matter, 
for instance, of their solidity and coherency. Phi- 
losophers have not been able to deduce the laws of 
friction from the other known properties of matter, 
nor even to explain what w r e know experimentally of 
such laws, (which is not much,) without introducing 
new hypotheses concerning the surfaces of bodies, 
&c. — hypotheses which are not supplied us by any 
other set of phenomena. So far as our knowledge 
goes, friction is a separate property, and may be 
conceived to have been bestowed upon matter for 
particular purposes. How well it answers the pur- 
pose of fitting matter for the uses of the daily life of 
man, we have alreadv seen. 

We may make suppositions as to the mode in 
which friction is connected with the texture of bodies; 
but little can be gained for philosophy, or for specu- 
lation of any kind, by such conjectures respecting 
unknown connexions. If, on the other hand, we 
consider this property of friction, and find that it 
prevails there, and there only, where the general 
functions, analogies, and relations of the universe 
require it, we shall probably receive a strong impres- 
sion that it was introduced into the system of the 
world for a purpose. 

3. It is very remarkable that this force, which is 
thus so efficacious and discharges such important 
offices in all earthly mechanism, disappears altoge- 
ther when we turn to the mechanism of the heavens. 
All motions on the earth soon stop; — a machine 



FRICTION. 



189 



which imitates the movements of the stars cannot 
go long without winding up : but the stars themselves 
have gone on in their courses for ages, with no dimi- 
nution of their motions, and offer no obvious pros- 
pect of any change. This is so palpable a fact, that 
the first attempts of men to systematize their me- 
chanical notions were founded upon it. The ancients 
held that motions were to be distinguished into natu- 
ral motions and violent, — the former go on without 
diminution — the latter are soon extinguished ; — the 
motions of the stars are of the former kind ; — those 
of a stone thrown, and in short all terrestrial mo- 
tions, of the latter. Modern philosophers maintain 
that the laws of motion are the same for celestial 
and terrestrial bodies ;— that all motions are natural 
according to the above description ; — but that in ter- 
restrial motions, friction comes in and alters their cha- 
racter, — destroys them so speedily that they appear to 
have existed only during an effort. And that this is 
the case will not now be contested. Is it not then 
somewhat remarkable that the same laws which pro- 
duce a state of permanent motion in the heavens, 
should, on the earth, give rise to a condition in which 
rest is the rule and motion the exception 1 The air, 
the waters, and the lighter portions of matter are, 
no doubt, in a state of perpetual motion ; over these 
friction has no empire : yet even their motions are 
interrupted, alternate, variable, and on the whole 
slight deviations from the condition of equilibrium. 
But in the solid parts of the globe, rest predominates 
incomparably over motion ; and this, not only with 
regard to the portions which cohere as parts of the 
same solid; for the whole surface of the earth is 
covered with loose masses, which, if the power of 
friction were abolished, would rush from their places 
and begin one universal and interminable dance, 
which would make the earth absolutely uninhabit- 
able. 

If, on the other hand, the dominion of friction were 
extended in any considerable degree into the planet- 



190 



COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS. 



ary spaces, there would soon be an end of the sys- 
tem. If the planet had moved in a fluid, as the Car- 
tesians supposed, and if this fluid had been subject to 
the rules of friction which prevail in terrestrial fluids, 
their motions could not have been of long duration. 
The solar system must soon have ceased to be a sys- 
tem of revolving bodies. 

But friction is neither abolished on the earth, nor 
active in the heavens. It operates where it is wanted, 
it is absent where it would be prejudicial. And both 
these circumstances occasion, in a remarkable man- 
ner, the steadiness of the course of nature. The 
stable condition of the objects in man's immediate 
neighbourhood, and the unvarying motions of the 
luminaries of heaven, are alike conducive to his well- 
being. This requires that he should be able to de- 
pend upon a fixed order of place, a fixed course of 
time. It requires, therefore, that terrestrial objects 
should be affected by friction, and that celestial 
should not; as is the case, in fact. What further 
evidence of benevolent design could this part of the 
constitution of the universe supply ? 

4 There is another view w T hich may be taken of 
the forces which operate on the earth to produce 
permanency or change. Some parts of the terres- 
trial system are under the dominion of powers which 
act energetically to prevent all motion, as the crys- 
talline forces by which the parts of rocks are bound 
together ; other parts are influenced by powers which 
produce a perpetual movement and change in the 
matter of which they consist ; thus plants and ani- 
mals are in a constant state of internal movement, 
by the agency of the vital forces. In the former case 
rigid immutability, in the latter perpetual develope- 
ment, are the tendencies of the agencies employed. 
Now in the case of objects affected by friction, we 
have a kind of intermediate condition, between the 
constantly fixed and the constantly moveable. Such 
objects can and do move ; but they move but for a 
short time if left to the laws of nature. When at 



FRICTION. 



191 



rest, they can easily be put in motion, but still not 
with unlimited ease ; a certain finite effort, different 
in different cases, is requisite for their purpose. Now 
this immediate condition, this capacity of receiving 
readily and alternately the states of rest and motion, 
is absolutely requisite for the nature of man, for the 
exertion of will, of contrivance, of foresight, as well 
as for the comfort of life and the conditions of our 
material existence. If all objects were fixed and 
immoveable, as if frozen into one mass; or if they 
were susceptible of such motions only as are found 
in the parts of vegetables, we attempt in vain to con- 
ceive what would come of the business of the world. 
But besides the state of a particle w T hich cannot be 
moved, and of a particle which cannot be stopped, 
we have the state of a particle moveable but not 
moved ; or moved, but moved only while we choose : 
and this state is that about which the powers, the 
thoughts, and the wants of man are mainly conver- 
sant. 

Thus the forces by which solidity and by which 
organic action are produced, the laws of permanence 
and of developement, do not bring about all that hap- 
pens, Besides these, there is a mechanical condition, 
that of a body exposed to friction, which is neither 
one of absolute permanency nor one naturally pro- 
gressive ; but is yet one absolutely necessary to make 
material objects capable of being instruments and 
aids to man; and this is the condition of by far the 
greater part of terrestrial things. The habitual 
course of events with regard to motion and rest is 
not the same for familiar moveable articles, as it is 
for the parts of the mineral, or of the vegetable world, 
when left to themselves ; such articles are in a con- 
dition far better adapted than any of those other con- 
ditions would be, to their place and purpose. Surely 
this shows us an adaptation, an adjustment, of the 
constitution of the material world to the nature of 
man. And as the organization of plants cannot be 
conceived otherwise than as having their life and 



192 



COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS. 



growth for its object, so we cannot conceive that 
friction should be one of the leading agencies in the 
world in which man is placed, without supposing 
that it was intended to be of use when man should 
walk and run, and build houses and ships, and bridges, 
and execute innumerable other processes, all of which 
would be impossible, admirably constituted as man is 
in other respects, if friction did not exist. And be- 
lieving, as we conceive we cannot but believe, that 
the laws of motion and rest were thus given with re- 
ference to their ends, we perceive in this instance, as 
in others, how w T ide and profound this reference is, 
how simple in its means, how fertile in its conse- 
quences, how effective in its details. 



BOOK III. 



RELIGIOUS VIEWS, 



The contemplation of the material universe ex^ 
hibits God to us as the author of the laws of material 
nature ; bringing before us a wonderful spectacle, in 
the simplicity, the comprehensiveness, the mutual 
adaptation of these laws, and in the vast variety of 
harmonious and beneficial effects produced by their 
mutual bearing and combined operation. But it is 
the consideration of the moral world, of the results 
of our powers of thought and action, which leads us 
to regard the Deity in that light in which our relation 
to hirn becomes a matter of the highest interest and 
importance. We perceive that man is capable of re- 
ferring his actions to principles of right and wrong ; 
that both his faculties and his virtues may be unfold- 
ed and advanced by the discipline which arises from 
the circumstances of human society ; that good men 
can be discriminated from the bad, only by a course 
of trial, by struggles with difficulty and temptation ; 
that the best men feel deeply the need of relying, in 
such conflicts, on the thought of a superintending 
Spiritual power ; that our views of justice, our capa- 
city for intellectual and moral advancement, and a 
crowd of hopes and anticipations which rise in our 
bosoms unsought,.and cling there with inexhaustible 
tenacity, will not allow us to acquiesce in the belief 
that this life is the end of our existence. We are 
thus led to see that our relation the Superintender of 
our moral being, to the Depositary of the supreme 

R 



194 



RELIGIOUS VIEWS. 



law of just and right, is a relation of incalculable 
consequence. We find that we cannot be permitted 
to be merely contemplators and speculators with re- 
gard to the Governor of the moral world ; we must 
obey His will; we must turn our affections to Him; 
we must advance in His favour; or we offend against 
the nature of our position in the scheme of which 
He is the author and sustainer. 

It is far from our purpose to represent natural re- 
ligion, as of itself sufficient for our support and guid- 
ance ; or to underrate the manner in which our views 
of the Lord of the universe have been, much more, 
perhaps, than we are sometimes aware, illustrated 
and confirmed by lights derived from revelation. 
We do not here speak of the manner in which men 
have come to believe in God, as the Governor of the 
moral world ; but of the fact, that by the aid of one 
or both of these two guides, Reason or Revelation, 
reflecting persons in every age have been led to such 
a belief. And we conceive it may be useful to point 
out some connexion between such a belief of a just 
and holy Governor, and the conviction, which we 
have already endeavoured to impress upon the 
reader, of a wise and benevolent Creator of the phy- 
sical world. This we shall endeavour to do in the pre- 
sent book. 

At the same time that men have thus learnt to look 
upon God as their Governor and Judge, the source 
of their support and reward, they have also been led, 
not only to ascribe to him power and skill, knowledge 
and goodness, but also attribute to him these quali- 
ties in a mode and degree excluding all limit : — to 
consider him as almighty, all-wise, of infinite know- 
ledge and inexhaustible goodness ; every where 
present and active, but incomprehensible by our 
minds, both in the manner of his agency, and the 
degree of his perfections. And this impression con- 
cerning the Deity appears to be that which the 
mind receives from all objects of contemplation and 
all modes of advance towards truth. To this con- 



A MORAL GOVERNOR. 



195 



ception it leaps with alacrity and joy, and in this 
it acquiesces with tranquil satisfaction and growing 
confidence ; while any other view of the nature of 
the Divine Power which formed and sustained the 
world, is incoherent and untenable, exposed to insur- 
mountable objections and intolerable incongruities. 
We shall endeavour to show that the modes of em- 
ployment of the thoughts to which the well conducted 
, study of nature gives rise, do tend, in all their forms, 
to produce or strengthen this impression on the 
mind; and that such an impression, and no other, is 
consistent with the widest views and most compre- 
hensive aspects of nature and of philosophy, which 
our Natural Philosophy opens to us. This will be 
the purpose of the latter part of the present book. In 
the first place we shall proceed with the object first 
mentioned, the connexion which may be perceived 
between the evidences of creative power, and of mo- 
ral government, in the world. 



CHAPTER I. 

The Creator of the Physical World is the Governor of 
the Moral World. 

With our views of the moral government of the 
world and the religious interests of man, the study of 
material nature is not and cannot be directly and 
closely connected. But it may be of some service to 
trace in these two lines of reasoning, seemingly so 
remote, a manifest convergence to the same point, a 
demonstrable unity of result. It may be useful to 
show that we are thus led, not to two rulers of the 

! universe, but to one God ; — to make it appear that 
the Creator and Preserver of the world is also the 
Governor and Judge of men ; — that the Author of the 
Laws of Nature is also the Author of the Law of 

' Duty; — that He who regulates corporeal things by 



196 



RELIGIOUS VIEWS. 



properties of attraction and affinity and assimilating 
power, is the same Being who regulates the actions 
and conditions of men, by the influence of the feeling 
of responsibility, the perception of right and wrong, 
the hope of happiness, the love of good. 

The conviction that the Divine attributes which 
we are taught by the study of the material world, 
and those w^hich we learn from the contemplation of 
man as a responsible agent, belong to the same Di- 
vine Being, will be forced upon us, if we consider 
the manner in w r hich all the parts of the universe, 
the corporeal and intellectual, the animal and moral, 
are connected with each other. In each of these 
provinces of creation we trace refined adaptations 
and arrangements which lead us to the Creator and 
and Director of so skilful a system; but these pro- 
vinces are so intermixed, these different trains of 
contrivance so interwoven, that we cannot, in our 
thoughts, separate the author of one part from the 
author of another. The Creator of the Heavens and 
of the Earth, of the inorganic and of the organic 
world, of animals and of man, of the affections and 
the conscience, appears inevitably to be one and the 
same God. 

W e will pursue this reflection a little more into 
detail. 

1. The Atmosphere is a mere mass of fluid floating 
on the surface of the ball of the earth; it is one of 
the inert and inorganic portions of the universe, and 
must be conceived to have been formed by the same 
Power w hich formed the solid mass of the earth and 
all other parts of the solar system. But how far is 
the atmosphere from being inert in its effects on or- 
ganic beings, and unconnected with the world of 
life ! By what wonderful adaptations of its mechani- 
cal and chemical properties, and of the vital powers 
of plants, to each other, are the developement and 
w r ell-being of plants and animals secured ! The crea- 
tor of the atmosphere must have been also the crea- 
tor of plants and animals : we cannot for an instant 



A MORAL GOVERNOR. 



197 



believe the contrary. But the atmosphere is not only 
subservient to the life of animals, and of man among 
the rest; it is also the vehicle of voice; it answers 
the purpose of intercourse ; and, in the case of man, 
of rational intercourse. We have seen how remark- 
ably the air is fitted for this office ; the construction 
of the organs of articulation, by which they are ena- 
bled to perform their part of the work, is, as is well 
known, a most exquisite system of contrivances. But 
though living in an atmosphere capable of transmit- 
ting articulate sound, and though provided with or- 
gans fitted to articulate, man would never attain to 
the use of language, if he were not also endowed 
with another set of faculties. The powers of abstrac- 
tion and generalization, memory and reason, the ten- 
dencies which occasion the inflexions and combina- 
tions of words, are all necessary to the formation 
and use of language. Are not these parts of the 
same scheme of which the bodily faculties by which 
we are able to speak are another part? Has man 
his mental powers independently of the creator of 
his bodily frame? To w^hat purpose then, or by 
what cause w r as the curious and complex machinery 
of the tongue, the glottis, the larynx produced? 
These are useful for speech, and full of contrivances 
which suggest such a use as the end for which those 
organs were constructed. But speech appears to 
have been no less contemplated in the intellectual 
structure of man. The processes of which we have 
spoken, generalization, abstraction, reasoning, have 
a close dependence on the use of speech. These fa- 
culties are presupposed in the formation of language, 
but they are developed and perfected by the use of 
language. The mind of man then, with all its intel- 
lectual endowments, is the work of the same artist 
by whose hands his bodily frame was fashioned ; as 
his bodily faculties again are evidently constructed 
by the maker of those elements on which their ac- 
tion depends. The creator of the atmosphere and 
of the material universe is the creator of the human 

r2 



198 



RELIGIOUS VIEWS, 



mind, and the author of those wonderful powers of 
thinking, judging, inferring, discovering, by which 
we are able to reason concerning the w T orld in which 
we are placed ; and which aid us in lifting our thoughts 
to the source of our being himself. 

2. Light, or the means by w 7 hieh light is propagat- 
ed, is another of the inorganic elements which forms 
a portion of the mere material world. The lumini- 
ferous ether, if we adopt that theory, or the fluid 
light of the theory of emission, must indubitably per- 
vade the remotest regions of the universe, and must 
be supposed to exist, as soon as we suppose the ma- 
terial parts of the universe to be in existence. The 
origin of light then must be at least as far removed 
from us as the origin of the solar system. Yet how 
closely connected are the properties of light w T ith the 
structure of our own bodies! The mechanism of the 
organs of vision and the mechanism of light are, as 
we have seen, most curiously adapted to each other. 
We must suppose, then, that the same power and 
skill produced one and the other of these two sets of 
contrivances, which so remarkably fit into each other. 
The creator of light is the author of our visual powers. 
But how small a portion does mere visual perception 
constitute of the advantages which we derive from 
vision ! We possess ulterior faculties and capacities 
by which sight becomes a source of happiness and 
good to man. The sense of beauty, the love of art, 
the pleasure arising from the contemplation of na- 
ture, are all dependent on the eye ; and we can hard- 
ly doubt that these faculties were bestowed on man 
to further the best interests of his being. The sense 
of beauty both animates and refines his domestic 
tendencies; the love of art is a powerful instrument 
for raising him above the mere cravings and satis- 
factions of his animal nature ; the expansion of mind 
which rises in us at the sight of the starry sky, the 
cloud-capt mountain, the boundless ocean, seems in- 
tended to direct our thoughts by an impressive though 
indefinite feeling, to the Infinite Author of All. But 



A MORAL GOVERNOR. 



if these faculties be thus part of the scheme of man's 
inner being, given him by a good and wise creator, 
can we suppose that this creator was any other than 
the creator also of those visual organs, without which 
the faculties could have no operation and no exist- 
ence 1 As clearly as light and the eye are the work 
of the same author, so clearly also do our capacities 
for the most exalted visual pleasures, and the feelings 
flowing from them, proceed from the same Divine 
Hand. 

3. The creator of the earth must be conceived to 
be the author also of all those qualities in the soil, 
chemical and whatever else, by which it supports 
vegetable life, under all the modifications of natural 
and artificial condition. Among the attributes which 
the earth thus possesses, there are some which seem 
to have an especial reference to man in a state of 
society. Such are — the power of the earth to increase 
its produce under the influence of cultivation, and 
the necessary existence of property in land, in order 
that this cultivation may be advantageously applied ; 
the rise, under such circumstances, of a surplus pro- 
duce, of a quantity of subsistence exceeding the 
wants of the cultivators alone; and the consequent 
possibility of inequalities of rank, and of all the ar- 
rangements of civil society. These are all parts of 
the constitution of the earth. But these would all 
remain mere idle possibilities, if the nature of man 
had not a corresponding direction. If man had not 
a social and economical tendency, a disposition to 
congregate and co-operate, to distribute possessions 
and offices among the members of the community, 
to make and obey and enforce laws, the earth would 
in vain be ready to respond to the care of the hus- 
bandman. Must we not then suppose that this attri- 
bute of the earth was bestowed upon it by Him who 
gave to man those corresponding attributes, through 
which the apparent niggardliness of the soil is the 
source of general comfort and security, of polity and 
law % Must we not suppose that He who created the 



200 



RELIGIOUS VIEWS. 



soil also inspired man with those social desires and 
feelings which produce cities and states, laws and 
institutions, arts and civilization ; and that thus the 
apparently inert mass of earth is a part of the same 
scheme as those faculties and powers with which 
man's moral and intellectual progress is most con- 
nected? 

4. Again : — It will hardly be questioned that the 
author of the material elements is also the author 
of the structure of animals, which is adapted to and 
provided for by the constitution of the elements in 
such innumerable ways. But the author of the 
bodily structure of animals must also be the au- 
thor of their instincts, for without these the struc- 
ture would not answer its purpose. And these 
instincts frequently assume the character of affec- 
tions in a most remarkable manner. The love of 
offspring, of home, of companions, are often display- 
ed by animals, in a way that strikes the most indif- 
ferent observer ; and yet these affections will hardly 
be denied to be a part of the same scheme as the in- 
stincts by which the same animals seek food and the 
gratifications of sense. Who can doubt that the 
anxious and devoted affection of the mother-bird for 
for her young after they are hatched, is a part of the 
same system of Providence as the instinct by which 
she is impelled to sit upon her eggs ? and this, of the 
same by which her eggs are so organized that incu- 
bation leads to the birth of the young animal f Nor, 
again, can we imagine that while the structure and 
affections of animals belong to one system of things, 
the affections of man, in many respects so similar to 
those of animals, and connected w r ith the bodily 
frame in a manner so closely analogous, can belong 
to a different scheme. Who, that reads the touching 
instances of maternal affection, related so often of 
the women of all nations, and of the females of all 
animals, can doubt that the principle of action is the 
same in the two cases, though enlightened in one of 
them by the rational faculty? And who can place in 



A MORAL GOVERNOR. 



201 



separate provinces the supporting and protecting 
love of the father and the mother? or consider as 
entirely distinct from these, and belonging to another 
part of our nature, the other kinds of family affec- 
tion? or disjoin man's love of his home, his clan, his 
tribe, his country, from the affection which he bears 
to his family ? The love of offspring, home, friends, 
in man, is then part of the same system of contriv- 
ances of which bodily organization is another part. 
And thus the author of our corporeal frame is also the 
author of our capacity of kindness and resentment, 
of our love and of our wish to be loved, of all the 
emotions which bind us to individuals, to our fami- 
lies, and to our kind. 

It is not necessary here to follow out and classify 
these emotions and affections : or to examine how 
they are combined and connected with our other 
motives of action, mutually giving and receiving 
strength and direction. The desire of esteem, of 
power, of knowledge, of society, the love of kindred, 
of friends, of our country, are manifestly among the 
main forces by which man is urged to act and to ab- 
stain. And as these parts of the constitution of man 
are clearly intended, as we conceive, to impel him 
in his appointed path : so we conceive that they are 
no less clearly the work of the same great Artificer 
who created the heart, the eye, the hand, the tongue, 
and that elemental world in which, by means of these 
instruments, man pursues the objects of his appetites, 
desires, and affections. 

5. But if the Creator of the world be also the au- 
thor of our intellectual powers, of our feeling for 
the beautiful and the sublime, of our social tenden- 
cies, and of our natural desires and affections, we 
shall find it impossible not to ascribe also to Him the 
higher directive attributes of our nature, the con- 
science and the religious feeling, the reference of our 
actions to the rule of duty and to the will of God, 

It would not suit the plan of the present treatise 
to enter into any detailed analysis of the connexion 



202 



RELIGIOUS VIEWS. 



of these various portions of our moral constitution. 
But we may observe that the existence and univer- 
sality of the conception of duty and right cannot be 
doubted, however men may differ as to its original 
or derivative nature. All men are perpetually led 
to form judgments concerning actions, and emotions 
which lead to action, as right or wrong ; as what 
they ought or ought not to do or feel. There is a fa- 
culty which approves and disapproves, acquits or 
condemns the workings of our other faculties. Now, 
what shall we say of such a judiciary principle, thus 
introduced among our motives to action ? Shall we 
conceive that while the other springs of action are 
balanced against each other by our Creator, this, the 
most pervading and universal regulator, was no part 
of the original scheme 1 That — while the love of 
animal pleasures, of power, of fame, the regard for 
friends, the pleasure of bestowing pleasure, were in- 
fused into man as influences by which his course of 
life was to be carried on, and his capacities and 
powers developed and exercised; — this reverence 
ibr a moral law, this acknowledgment of the obliga- 
tion of duty,— a feeling which is every where found, 
and which may become a powerful, a predominating 
motive of action, — was given for no purpose, and 
belongs not to the design 1 Such an opinion would 
be much as if we should acknowledge the skill and 
contrivance manifested in the other parts of a ship, 
but should refuse to recognize the rudder as exhibit- 
ing any evidence of a purpose. Without the rever- 
ence which the opinion of right inspires, and the 
scourge of general disapprobation inflicted on that 
which is accounted wicked, society could scarcely 
go on ; and certainly the feelings and thoughts and 
characters of men could not be what they are. 
Those impulses of nature which involve no acknow- 
ledgment of responsibility, and the play and strug- 
gle of interfering wishes, might preserve the species 
in some shape of existence, as we see in the case of 
brutes. But a person must be strangely constituted, 



A MORAL GOVERNOR. 



203 



who, living amid the respect for law, the admiration 
for what is good, the order and virtues and graces 
of civilized nations, (all which have their origin in 
some degree in the feeling of responsibility) can 
maintain that all these are casual and extraneous 
circumstances, no way contemplated in the forma- 
tion of man ; and that a condition in which there 
should be obligation in law, no merit in self-restraint, 
no beauty in virtue, is equally suited to the powers 
and the nature of man, and was equally contem- 
plated when those powers were given him. 

If this supposition be too extravagant to be admit- 
ted, as it appears to be, it remains then that man, 
intended, as we have already seen from his structure 
and properties, to be a discoursing, social being, 
acting under the influence of affections, desires, and 
purposes, was also intended to act under the influ- 
ence of a sense of duty; and that the acknowledg- 
ment of the obligation of a moral law is as much 
part of his nature, as hunger or thirst, maternal love 
or the desire of power ; that, therefore, in conceiv- 
ing man as the work of a Creator, we must imagine 
his powers and character given him w T ith an inten- 
tion on the Creator's part that this sense of duty 
should occupy its place in his constitution as an ac- 
tive and thinking being : and that this directive and 
judiciary principle is a part of the work of the same 
Author who made the elements to minister to the 
material functions, and the arrangements of the 
world to occupy the individual and social affections 
of his living creatures. 

This principle of conscience, it may further be 
observed, does not stand upon the same level as the 
other impulses of our constitution by which we are 
prompted or restrained. By its very nature and es- 
sence, it possesses a supremacy over all others. 
" Your obligation to obey this law is its being the 
law of your nature. That your conscience approves 
of and attests such a course of action is itself alone 
an obligation. Conscience does not only offer itself 



204 



RELIGIOUS VIEWS. 



to show us the way we should walk in, but it like- 
wise carries its own authority with it, that it is our 
natural guide : the guide assigned us by the author 
of our nature."* That we ought to do an action, is 
of itself a sufficient and ultimate answer to the ques- 
tions, why we should do it 1 — how we are obliged to 
do it ? The conviction of duty implies the soundest 
reason, the strongest obligation, of which our nature 
is susceptible. 

We appear then to be using only language which 
is well capable of being justified, when we speak of 
this irresistible esteem for what is right, this convic- 
tion of a rule of action extending beyond the grati- 
fication of our irreflective impulses, as an impress 
stamped upon the human mind by the Deity himself; 
a trace of His nature ; an indication of His will; an 
announcement of His purpose ; a promise of His 
favour : and though this faculty may need to be con- 
firmed and unfolded, instructed and assisted by other 
aids, it still seems to contain in itself a sufficient in- 
timation that the highest objects of man's existence 
are to be attained, by means of a direct and inti- 
mate reference of his thoughts and actions to the 
Divine Author of his being. 

Such then is the Deity to which the researches of 
Natural Theology point ; and so far is the train of 
reflections in which we have engaged, from being 
merely speculative and barren. With the material 
world we cannot stop. If a superior Intelligence 
have ordered and adjusted the succession of seasons 
and the structure of the plants of the field, we must 
allow far more than this at first sight would seem to 
imply. We must admit still greater powers, still 
higher wisdom for the creation of the beasts of the 
forest with their faculties ; and higher wisdom still 
and more transcendent attributes, for the creation of 
man. And w T hen we reach this point, we find that it 
is not knowledge only, not power only, not foresight 



* Butler, Serm. 3. 



VASTNESS OF THE UNIVERSE. 



205 



and beneficence alone, which we must attribute to 
the Maker of the World; but that we must consider 
him as the Author, in us, of a reverence for moral 
purity and rectitude ; and, if the author of such emo- 
tions in us, how can we conceive of Him otherwise, 
than that these qualities are parts of his nature; and 
that he is not only wise and great, and good, incom- 
parably beyond our highest conceptions, but also 
conformed in his puposes to the rule which he thus 
impresses upon us, that is, Holy in the highest degree 
which we can imagine to ourselves as possible. 



CHAPTER IL 

On the Vasiness of the Universe. 

1. The aspect* of the world, even without any of 
the peculiar lights which science throws upon it, is 
fitted to give us an idea of the greatness of the power 
by which it is directed and governed, far exceeding 
any notions of power and greatness which are sug- 
gested by any other contemplation. The number of 
human beings who surround us— the various condi- 
tions requisite for their life, nutrition, well-being, all 
fulfilled ;— the way in which these conditions are 
modified, as w r e pass in thought to other countries, 
by climate, temperament, habit;— the vast amount 
of the human population of the globe thus made up; — 
yet man himself biit one among almost endless tribes 
of animals ; — the forest, the field, the desert, the air, 
the ocean, all teeming with creatures whose bodily 
wants are as carefully provided for as his ; — the sun, 
the clouds, the winds, all attending, as it were, on 
these organized beings ; — a host of beneficent ener- 
gies, unwearied by time and succession, pervading 
every corner of the earth ; — this spectacle cannot 
but give the contemplator a lofty and magnificent 

s 



206 



RELIGIOUS VIEWS. 



conception of the Author of so vast a work, of the 
Ruler of so wide and rich an empire, of the Provider 
for so many and varied wants, the Director and Ad- 
juster of such complex and jarring interests. 

But when we take a more exact view of this spec- 
tacle, and aid our vision by the discoveries which 
have been made of the structure and extent of the 
universe, the impression is incalculably increased. 

The number and variety of animals, the exquisite 
skill displayed in their structure, the comprehensive 
and profound relations by which they are connected, 
far exceed any thing which we could in any degree 
have imagined. But the view of the universe ex- 
pands also on another side. The earth, the globular 
body thus covered with life, is not the only globe in 
the universe. There are, circling about our own sun, 
six others, so far as we can judge, perfectly analogous 
in their nature : besides our moon and other bodies 
analogous to it. No one can resist the temptation to 
conjecture, that these globes, somfc of them much 
larger than our own, are not dead and barren; — that 
they are, like ours, occupied with organization, life, 
intelligence. To conjecture is all that we can do, 
yet even by the perception of such a possibility, our 
view of the kingdom of nature is enlarged and ele- 
vated. The outermost of the planetary globes of 
which we have spoken is so far from the sun, that 
the central luminary must appear to the inhabitants 
of that planet, if any there are, no larger than Ve- 
nus does to us ; and the length of their year will be 
eighty-two of ours. 

But astronomy carries us still onwards. It teaches 
us that, with the exception of the planets already 
mentioned, the stars which we see have no imme- 
diate relation to our system. The obvious supposi- 
tion is that they are of the nature and order of our 
sun: the minuteness of their apparent magnitude 
agrees, on this supposition, with the enormous and 
almost inconceivable distance which, from all the 
measurements of astronomers, we are led to attribute 



VASTNESS OF THE UNIVERSE. 



207 



to them. If then these are suns, they may, like our 
sun, have planets revolving round them ; and these 
may, like our planet, be the seats of vegetable and 
animal and rational life: — we may thus have in the 
universe worlds, no one knows how many, no one 
can guess how varied: — but however many, however 
varied, they are still but so many provinces in the 
same empire, subject to common rules, governed by 
a common power. 

But the stars which we see with the naked eye are 
but a very small portion of those which the tele- 
scope unveils to u& The most imperfect telescope 
will discover some that are invisible without it ; the 
very best instrument perhaps does not show us the 
most remote. The number which crowds some parts 
of the heavens is truly marvellous. Dr. Herschel 
calculated that a portion of the milky way, about ten 
degrees long and two and a half broad, contained 
two hundred and fifty-eight thousand. In a sky so 
occupied, the moon would eclipse two thousand of 
such stars at once. 

We learn too from the telescope that even in this 
province the variety of nature is not exhausted. Not 
only do the stars differ in colour and appearance, but 
some of them grow periodically fainter and brighter, 
as if they were dark on one side, and revolved on 
their axes. In other cases two stars appear close to 
each other, and in some of these cases it has been 
clearly established, that the two have a motion of 
revolution about each other ; thus exhibiting an ar- 
rangement before unguessed, and giving rise, possi- 
bly, to new conditions of worlds. In other instances 
again, the telescope shows, not luminous points, but 
extended masses of dilute light, like bright clouds, 
hence called nebula. Some have supposed (as we 
have noticed in the last book) that such nebulas by 
further condensation might become suns ; but for 
such opinions we have nothing but conjecture. Some 
stars again have undergone permanent changes, or 
have absolutely disappeared, as the celebrated star 
of 1572, in the constellation Cassiopea. 



208 



RELIGIOUS VIEWS, 



If we take the whole range of created objects in 
our own system, from the sun down to the smallest 
animalcule, and suppose such a system, or something 
in some way analogous to it, to be repeated for each 
of the millions of stars thus revealed to us. we have 
a representation of the material part of the universe, 
according to a view which many minds receive as a 
probable one ; and referring this aggregate of sys- 
tems to the Author of the universe, as in our own 
system we have found ourselves led to do, we have 
thus an estimate of the extent to which his creative 
energy would thus appear to have been exercised in 
the material world. 

If we consider further the endless and admirable 
contrivances and adaptations which philosophers 
and observers have discovered in every portion of 
our own system, every new step of our knowledge 
showing us something new in this respect ; and if we 
combine this consideration with the thought how 
small a portion of the universe our knowledge in- 
cludes, we shall, without being able at all to discern 
the extent of the skill and wisdom thus displayed, see 
something of the character of the design- and of the 
copiousness and ampleness of the means which the 
scheme of the world exhibits. And when we see that 
the tendency of all the arrangements which we can 
comprehend is to support the existence, to develope 
the faculties, to promote the well-being of these count- 
less species of creatures; we shall have some im- 
pression of the beneficence and love of the Creator, 
as manifested in the physical government of his 
creation. 

2, It is extremely difficult to devise any means of 
bringing before a common apprehension the scale 
on which the universe is constructed, the enormous 
proportion which the larger dimensions bear to the 
smaller, and the amazing number of steps from large 
to smaller, or from small to larger, which the consi- 
deration of it offers. The following comparative re- 



VASTNESS OP THE UNIVERSE. 



209 



presentations may serve to give the reader to whom 
the subject is new some idea of these steps. 

If we suppose the earth to be represented by a 
globe a foot in diameter, the distance of the sun from 
the earth will be about two miles; the diameter of 
the sun, on the same supposition, will be something 
above one hundred feet, and consequently his bulk 
such as might be made up of two hemispheres, each 
about the size of the dome of St. Paul's. The moon 
will be thirty feet from us, and her diameter three 
inches, about that of a cricket ball. Thus the sun 
would much more than occupy all the space within 
the moon's orbit. On the same scale, Jupiter w T ould 
be above ten miles from the sun, and Uranus forty. 
We see then how thinly scattered through space are 
the heavenly bodies. The fixed stars would be at an 
unknown distance, but, probably, if all distances were 
thus diminished, no star would be nearer to such a 
one-foot earth, than the moon now is to us. 

On such a terrestrial globe the highest mountains 
would be about an eightieth of an inch high, and 
consequently only just distinguishable. We ma} r 
imagine therefore how imperceptible would be the 
largest animals. The whole organized covering of 
such a globe would be quite undiscoverable by the 
eye, except perhaps by colour, like the bloom on a 
plum. 

In order to restore this earth and its inhabitants to 
their true dimensions, we must magnify them forty 
millions of times ; and to preserve the proportions, 
w r e must increase equally the distances of the sun 
and of the stars from us. They seem thus to pass 
off into infinity; yet each of them thus removed, has- 
its system of mechanical and perhaps of organic pro- 
cesses going on upon its surface. 

But the arrangements of organic life which we 
can see with the naked eye are few, compared with 
those which the microscope detects. We know that 
we may magnify objects thousands of times, and still 
discover fresh complexities of structure; if we sup- 
s 2 



210 



RELIGIOUS VIEWS* 



pose, therefore, that we increase every particle of 
matter in our universe in such a proportion, in length, 
breadth? and thickness, we may conceive that we 
tend thus to bring before our apprehension a true 
estimate of the quantity of organized adaptations 
which are ready to testify the extent of the Creator's 
power. 

3, The other numerical quantities which we have 
to consider in the phenomena of the universe are on 
as gigantic a scale as the distances and sizes- By 
the rotation of the earth on its axis, the parts of the 
equator move at the rate of a thousand miles an hour, 
and the portions of the earth's surface which are in 
our latitude, at about six hundred. The former ve- 
locity is nearly that with which a cannon ball is dis- 
charged from the mouth of a gun; but y large as it is ? 
it is inconsiderable compared with the velocity of 
the earth in its orbit about the sun. This latter ve- 
locity is sixty-five times the former* By the rotatory 
motion of the earth, a point of its surface is carried 
sometimes forwards and sometimes backwards with 
regard to the annual progression; but in consequence 
of the great predominance of the latter velocity in 
amount, the former scarcely affects it either way. 
And even the latter velocity is inconsiderable com- 
pared with that of light ; which comparison, how- 
ever, we shall not make; since, according to the 
theory we have considered as most probable, the 
motion of light is not a transfer of matter but of mo- 
tion from one part of space to another. 

The extent of the scale of density of different sub- 
stances has already been mentioned ; gold is twenty 
times as heavy as water ; air is eight hundred and 
thirty times lighter, steam eight thousand times lighter 
than water ; the luminiferous ether is incomparably 
rarer than steam : and this is true of the matter of 
light, whether we adopt the undulatory theory or 
any other. 

4. The above statements are vast in amount, and 
almost oppressive to our faculties. They belong to 



VASTtfESS OF THE UNIVERSE, 



211 



the measurement of the powers which are exerted 
in the universe, and of the spaces through which 
their efficacy reaches (for the most distant bodies 
are probably connected both by gravity and light.) 
But these estimates cannot be said so much to give 
us any notion of the powers of the Deity, as to cor- 
rect the errors w T e should fall into by supposing his 
powers at all to resemble ours : — by supposing that 
numbers, and spaces, and forces, and combinations, 
which would overwhelm us, are any obstacle to the 
arrangements which his plan requires. We can ea- 
sily understand that to an intelligence surpassing 
ours in degree only, that may be easy which is im- 
possible to us. The child who cannot count beyond 
four, the savage who has no name for any number 
above five, cannot comprehend the possibility of deal- 
ing with thousands and millions : yet a little additional 
developement of the intellect makes such numbers 
manageable and conceivable. The difficulty which 
appears to reside in numbers and magnitudes and 
stages of subordination, is one produced by judging 
from ourselves — by measuring with our own sound- 
ing line ; when that reaches no bottom, the ocean 
appears unfathomable. Yet in fact, how is a hun- 
dred millions of miles a great distance 1 how is a 
hundred millions of times a great ratio ? Not in it- 
self : this greatness is no quality of the numbers which 
can be proved like their mathematical properties ; on 
the contrary, all that absolutely belongs to number, 
space, and ratio, must, we know demonstrably, be 
equally true of the largest and the smallest. It is 
clear that the greatness of these expressions of mea- 
sure has reference to our faculties only. Our asto- 
nishment and embarrassment take for granted the 
limits of our own nature. We have a tendency to treat 
a difference of degree and of addition, as if it were 
a difference of kind and of transformation. The ex- 
istence of the attributes, design, power, goodness, is 
a matter depending on obvious grounds : about these 
qualities there can be no mistake : if we can know 



212 



RELIGIOUS VIEWS* 



any thing, we can know these attributes when we 
see them. But the extent, the limits of such attri- 
butes must be determined by their effects ; our know- 
ledge of their limits by what we see of the effects. 
Nor is any extent, any amount of power and good- 
ness improbable beforehand: we know that these 
must be great, we cannot tell how great. We should 
not expect beforehand to find them bounded; and 
therefore when the boundless prospect opens before 
us, we may be bewildered, but we have no reason to 
be shaken in our conviction of the reality of the cause 
from which their effects proceed : we may feel our- 
selves incapable of following the train of thought, 
and may stop, but we have no rational motive for 
quitting the point which we have thus attained in 
tracing the Divine Perfections. 

On the contrary, those magnitudes and propor- 
tions which leave our powers of conception far be- 
hind ; — that ever-expanding view which is brought 
before us, of the scale and mechanism, the riches 
and magnificence, the population and activity of the 
universe ; — may reasonably serve, not to disturb, 
but to enlarge and elevate our conceptions of the 
Maker and Master of all ; to feed an ever-growing 
admiration of His wonderful nature ; and to excite 
a desire to be able to contemplate more steadily and 
conceive less inadequately the scheme of his govern- 
ment and the operation of his power. 



CHAPTER III. 

On Man's Place in the Universe. 

The mere aspect of the starry heavens, without 
taking into account the view of them to which science 
introduces us, tends strongly to force upon man the 



man's place in the universe. 



213 



impression of his own insignificance. The vault of 
the sky arched at a vast and unknown distance over 
our heads ; the stars, apparently infinite in number, 
each keeping its appointed place and course, and 
seeming to belong to a wide system of things which 
has no relation to the earth ; while man is but one 
among many millions of the earth's inhabitants ; — 
all this makes the contemplative spectator feel how 
exceedingly small a portion of the universe he is ; 
how little he must be, in the eyes of an intelligence 
which can embrace the whole. Every person, in 
every age and country, will recognize as irresistibly 
natural the train of thought expressed by the Hebrew- 
psalmist : " when I consider the heavens the work of 
thy hands — the moon and the stars which thou 
hast ordained — Lord what is man that thou art 
mindful of him, or the son of man that thou regard- 
est him ?" 

If this be the feeling of the untaught person, when 
he contemplates the aspect of the skies, such as they 
offer themselves to a casual and unassisted glance, 
the impression must needs be incalculably augment- 
ed, when we look at the universe with the aid of as- 
tronomical discovery and theory. We then find, 
that a few of the shining points which we see scat- 
tered on the face of the sky in such profusion, ap- 
pear to be of the same nature as the earth, and may 
perhaps, as analogy would suggest, be like the earth, 
the habitations of organized beings ; — that the rest 
of " the host of heaven" may, by a like analogy, be 
conjectured to be the centres of similar systems of 
revolving worlds ; — -that the vision of man has gone 
travelling onwards, to an extent never anticipated, 
through this multitude of systems, and that while 
myriads of new centres start up at every advance, 
he appears as yet not to have received any intima- 
tion of a limit. Every person probably,feels, at first, 
lost, confounded, overwhelmed, with the vastness of 
this spectacle ; and seems to himself, as it were, an- 
nihilated by the magnitude and multitude of the ob- 



214 



RELIGIGUS VIEWS. 



jects which thus compose the universe. The distance 
between him and the Creator of the world appears 
to be increased beyond measure by this disclosure. 
It seems as if a single individual could have no 
chance and no claim for the regard of the Ruler of 
the whole. 

The mode in which the belief of God's govern- 
ment of the physical world is important and interest- 
ing to man, is, as has already been said, through the 
connexion w r hich this belief has with the conviction 
of God's government of the moral world ; this latter 
government being, from its nature, one which ha? 
a personal relation to each individual, his actions and 
thoughts. It will, therefore, illustrate our subject to 
show r that this impression of the difficulty of a per- 
sonal superintendence and government, exercised by 
the Maker of the world over each of his rational 
and free creatures, is founded upon illusory view r s : 
and that on an attentive and philosophical examina- 
tion of the subject, such a government is in accord- 
ance with all that we can discover of the scheme 
and the scale of the universe. 

1. We may, in the first place, repeat the observa- 
tion made in the last chapter, on the confusion 
which sometimes arises in our minds, and makes us 
consider the number of the objects of the Divine care 
as a difficulty in the way of its exercise. If we can 
conceive this care employed on a million of persons, 
on the population of a kingdom, of a city, of a street, 
there is no real difficulty in supposing it extended to 
every planet in the solar system, admitting each to 
be peopled as ours is ; nor to every part of the uni- 
verse, supposing each star the centre of such a sys- 
tem* Numbers are nothing in themselves; and when 
we reject the known, but unessential limits of our own 
faculties, it is quite as allowable to suppose a million 
millions of earths, as one, to be under the moral go- 
vernment of God. 

2. In the next place we may remark, not only that 
no reason can be assigned why the Divine care should 



man's place in the universe. 



215 



not extend to a much greater number of individuals 
than we at first imagine, but that in fact we know 
that it does so extend. It has been well observed, 
that about the same time when the invention of the 
telescope showed us that there might be myriads of 
other worlds claiming the Creator's care; the inven- 
tion of the microscope proved to us that there were 
in our own world myriads of creatures, before un- 
known, which this care was preserving. While one 
discovery seemed to remove the Divine Providence 
further from us, the other gave us most striking ex- 
amples that it was far more active in our neighbour- 
hood than we had supposed: while the first extended 
the boundaries of God's known kingdom, the second 
made its known administration more minute and 
careful. It appeared that in the leaf and in the bud, 
in solids and in fluids, animals existed hitherto unsus- 
pected; the apparently dead masses and blank spaces 
of the world were found to swarm w 7 ith life. And 
yet, of the animals thus revealed, all, though unknown 
to us before, had never been forgotten by Providence. 
Their structure, their vessels and limbs, their adapta- 
tion to their situation, their food and habitations, were 
regulated in as beautiful and complete a manner as 
those of the largest and apparently most favoured 
animals. The smallest insects are as exactly finish- 
ed, often as gaily ornamented, as the most graceful 
beasts or the birds of brightest plumage. And when 
we seem to go out of the domain of the complex ani- 
mal structure with which we are familiar, and come 
to animals of apparently more scanty faculties, and 
less developed powers of enjoyment and action, we 
still find that their faculties and their senses are in 
exact harmony with their situation and circum- 
stances; that the wants which they have are pro- 
vided for, and the powers which they possess called 
into activity. So that Muller, the patient and accu- 
rate observer of the smallest and most obscure mi- 
croscopical animalcula, declares that all classes alike, 
those which have manifest organs, and those which 



216 



RELIGIOUS VIEWS- 



have not, offer a vast quantity of new and striking 
views of the animal economy; every step of our dis- 
coveries leading us to admire the design and care of 
the Creator.* We find, therefore, that the Divine 
Providence is, in fact, capable of extending itself 
adequately to an immense succession of tribes of be- 
ings, surpassing what we can imagine or could pre- 
viously have anticipated ; and thus we may feel se- 
cure, so far as analogy can secure us, that the mere 
multitude of created objects cannot remove us from 
the government and superintendence of the Creator. 

3. We may observe further, that, vast as are the 
parts and proportions of the universe, we still appear 
to be able to perceive that it is finite; the subordina- 
tion of magnitudes and numbers and classes appears 
to have its limits. Thus, for any thing which we can 
discover, the sun is the largest body in the universe; 
and at any rate, bodies of the order of the sun are 
the largest of which we have any evidence: we 
know of no substance denser than gold, and it is im- 
probable that one denser, or at least much denser, 
should ever be detected : the largest animals which 
exist in the sea and on the earth are almost certainly 
known to us. We may venture also to say, that the 
smallest animals which possess in their structure a 
clear analogy with larger ones, have been already 
seen. Many of the animals w^hich the microscope 
detects, are as complete and complex in their organi- 
zation as those of larger size : but beyond a certain 
point, they appear, as they become more minute, to 
be reduced to a homogeneity and simplicity of com- 
position which almost excludes them from the do- 
main of animal life. The smallest microscopical ob- 
jects which can be supposed to be organic, are 
points,f or gelatinous globules,J or threads,§ in which 
no distinct organs, interior or exterior, can be dis- 
covered. These, it is clear, cannot be considered as 



* M tiller, Infusoria, Preface. f Monas. M tiller. Cuvier. 
X Volvox. - § Vibrio. M tiller. Cuvier. 



man's place in the universe. 



217 



indicating an indefinite progression of animal life in 
a descending scale of minuteness. We can, mathe- 
matically speaking, conceive one of these animals as 
perfect and complicated in its structure as an ele- 
phant or an eagle, but we do not find it so in nature. 
It appears, on the contrary, in these objects, as if 
we were, at a certain point of magnitude, reaching 
the boundaries of the animal world. We need not 
here consider the hypotheses and opinions to which 
these ambiguous objects have given rise; but, without 
any theory, they tend to show that the subordination 
of organic life is finite on the side of the little as w r ell 
as of the great 

Some persons might, perhaps, imagine that a 
ground for believing the smallness of organized be- 
ings to be limited, might be found in what we know 
of the constitution of matter. If solids and fluids 
consist of particles of a definite, though exceeding 
smallness, which cannot further be divided or dimi- 
nished, it is manifest that we have, in the smallness 
of these particles, a limit to the possible size of the 
vessels and organs of animals. The fluids which 
are secreted, and which circulate in the body of a 
mite, must needs consist of a vast number of parti- 
cles, or they would not be fluids : and an animal 
might be so much smaller than a mite, that its tubes 
could not contain a sufficient collection of the atoms 
of matter, to carry on its functions. We should, 
therefore, of necessity reach a limit of minutenes? 
in organic life-, if we could demonstrate that matter 
is composed of such indivisible atoms. We shall 
not, however, build any thing on this argument ; 
because, though the atomic theory is sometimes said 
to be proved, what is proved is, that chemical and 
other effects take place as if they were the aggre- 
gate of the effects of certain particles of elements, 
the proportions of which particles are fixed and de- 
finite ; but that any limit can be assigned to the 
smallness of these particles, has never yet been made 
out. We prefer, therefore, to rest the proof of the 

T 



218 



RELIGIOUS VIEWS. 



finite extent of animal life, as to size, on the micro- 
scopical observations previously referred to. 

Probably we cannot yet be said to have reached 
the limit of the universe with the power of our tele- 
scopes ; that is, it does not appear that telescopes 
have yet been used, so powerful in exhibiting small 
stars, that we can assume that more powerful in- 
struments w^ould not discover new stars. Whether 
or no, however, this degree of perfection has been 
reached, we have no proof that it does not exist ; 
if it were once obtained we should have, with some 
approximation, the limit of the universe as to the 
number of worlds, as we have already endeavoured 
to show we have obtained the limits w r ith regard to 
the largeness and smallness of the inhabitants of our 
own world. 

In like manner, although the discovery of new 
species in some of the kingdoms of nature has gone 
on recently w'ith enormous rapidity, and to an im- 
mense extent: — for instance in botany, where the 
species know~n in the time of Linnaeus were about 
ten thousand, and are now probably fifty thousand; 
— there can be no doubt that the number of species 
and genera is really limited ; and though a great ex- 
tension of our knowledge is required to reach these 
limits, it is our ignorance merely, and not their non- 
existence, which removes them from us. 

In the same wayitw r ould appear that the universe, 
so far as it is an object of our knowledge, is finite 
in other respects also. Now when we have once 
attained this conviction, all the oppressive apprehen- 
sion of being overlooked in the government of the 
universe has no longer any rational source. For in 
the superintendence of a finite system of things, w T hat 
is there which can appear difficult or overwhelming 
to a Being such as w 7 e must, from what we know, 
conceive the Creator to be ? Difficulties arising from 
space, number, gradation, are such as w T e can con- 
ceive ourselves capable of overcoming, merely by an 
extension of our present faculties. Is it not then 



man's place IN the universe. 219 

easy to imagine that such difficulties must vanish 
before Him who made us and our faculties 1 Let it 
be considered how enormous a proportion the largest 
work of man bears to the smallest ; — the great py- 
ramid to the point of a needle. This comparison 
does not overwhelm us, because we know that man 
has made both. Yet the difference between this 
proportion and that of the sun to the claw of a mite, 
does not at all correspond to the difference which we 
must suppose to obtain between the Creator and the 
creature. It appears then that, if the first flash of 
that view of the universe w T hich science reveals to 
us, does sometimes dazzle and bewilder men, a more 
attentive examination of the prospect, by the light 
we thus obtain, shows us how unfounded is the des- 
pair of our being the objects of Divine Providence, 
how absurd the persuasion that we have discovered 
the universe to be too large for its ruler. 

4. Another ground of satisfactory reflection, hav- 
ing the same tendency, is to be found in the admira- 
ble order and consistency, the subordination and 
proportion of parts, which we find to prevail in the 
universe, as far as our discoveries reach. We have, 
it may be, a multitude almost innumerable of worlds, 
but no symptom of crowding, of confusion, of inter- 
ference. All such defects are avoided by the manner 
in which these worlds are distributed into systems ; — 
these systems, each occupying a vast space, but yet 
disposed at distances before which their own dimen- 
sions shrink into insignificance ; — all governed by one 
law, yet this law so concentrating its operation on 
each system, that each proceeds as if there were no 
other, and so regulating its own effects that perpe- 
tual change produces permanent uniformity. This 
is the kind of harmonious relation which we perceive 
in that part of the universe, the mechanical part 
namely, the laws of which are best known to us. 
In other provinces, w 7 here our knowledge is more 
imperfect, we can see glimpses of a similar vastness 
of combination, producing, by its very nature, com- 



220 



RELIGIOUS VIEWS. 



pleteness of detail Any analogy by which we can 
extend such views to the moral world, must be of a 
very wide and indefinite kind: yet the contemplation 
of this admirable relation of the arrangements of the 
physical creation, and the perfect working of their 
laws, is well calculated to give us confidence in a 
similar beauty and perfection in the arrangements 
by which our moral relations are directed, our 
higher powers and hopes unfolded. We may readily 
believe that there is. in this part of the creation also, 
an order, a subordination of some relations to others, 
which may remove all difficulty arising from the 
vast multitude of moral agents and actions, and make 
it possible that the superintendence of the moral 
world shall be directed with as exact a tendency to 
moral good, as that by which the government of the 
physical world is directed to physical good. 

We may perhaps see glimpses of such an order, 
in the arrangements by which our highest and mos: 
important duties depend upon our relation to a small 
circle of persons immediately around us: and again, 
in the manner in which our acting well or ill results 
from the operation of a few principles within us ; as 
our conscience, our desire of moral excellence, and 
of the favour of God. We can hardly consider such 
principles otherwise than as intended to occupy their 
proper place in the system by which man's destina- 
tion is to be determined; and thus, as among the 
means of the government and superintendence of 
God in the moral world. 

That there must be an order and a system to which 
such regulative principles belong, the whole analogy 
of creation compels us to believe. It wo^M be strange 
indeed, if. while the mechanical wond, the system of 
inert matter, is so arranged that we cannot contem- 
plate its order without an elevated intellectual plea- 
sure;— while organized life has no faculties without 
their proper scope, no tendencies without their ap- 
pointed object: — the rational faculties and moral ten-* 
dencies of man should belong to no svsternatic order. 



KAN'S PLACE IX THE UNIVERSE. 



221 



should operate with no corresponding purpose : that, 
while the perception of sweet and bitter has its ac- 
knowledged and unmistakeable uses, the universal 
perception of right and wrong, the unconquerable 
belief of the merit of certain feelings and actions, the 
craving alike after moral advancement and after the 
means of attaining it, should exist only to delude, 
perplex, and disappoint man. No one, with his con- 
templations calmed and filled and harmonized by the 
view of the known constitution of the universe, its 
machinery " wheeling unshaken" in the farthest skies 
and in the darkest cavern, its vital spirit breathing 
alike effectively in the veins of the philosopher and 
the worm ; — no one, under the influence of such a 
train of contemplations, can possibly admit into his 
mind a persuasion which makes the moral part of 
our nature a collection of inconsistent and futile im- 
pressions, of idle dreams and warring opinions, each 
having the same claims to our acceptance. Wide as 
is the distance between the material and the moral 
world: shadowy as all reasonings necessarily are 
which attempt to carry the inferences of one into the 
other: elevated above the region of matter as all the 
principles and grounds of truth must be, which be- 
long to our responsibilities and hopes ; still the astro- 
nomical and natural philosopher can hardly fail to 
draw from their studies an imperturbable conviction 
that our moral nature cannot correspond to those re- 
presentations according to which it has no law, co- 
herency, or object. The mere natural reasoner may, 
or must stop far short of all that it is his highest in- 
terest to know, his first duty to pursue : but even he, 
if he take any elevated and comprehensive views of 
his own subject, must escape from the opinions, as 
unphilosophical as they are comfortless, which would 
expel from our view of the world all reference to 
duty and moral good, all reliance on the most uni- 
versal grounds of trust and hope. 

Men's belief of their duty, and of the reasons for 
practising it, connected as it is with the conviction 

t2 



222 



RELIGIOUS VIEWS, 



of a personal relation to their Make r, and of His power 
of superintendence and reward, is as manifest a fact 
in the moral, as any that can be pointed out is in 
the natural world. By mere analogy which has been 
intimated, therefore, w T e cannot but conceive that 
this fact belongs in some manner or other to the 
order of the moral world, and of its government. 

When any one acknowledges a moral governor of 
the world ; perceives that domestic and social rela- 
tions are perpetually operating and seem intended to 
operate, to retain and direct men in the path of duty; 
and feels that the voice of conscience, the peace of 
heart which results from a course of virtue, and the 
consolations of devotion, are ever ready to assume 
their office as o>ur guides and aids in the conduct of 
all our actions ; — he will probably be willing to ac- 
knowledge also that the means of moral government 
are not wanting, and will no longer be oppressed or 
disturbed by the apprehension that the superintend- 
ence of the world may be too difficult for its Ruler, 
and that any of His subjects and servants may be 
overlooked. He will no more fear that the mo- 
ral than that the physical laws of God's creation 
should be forgotten in any particular case : and as he 
knows that every sparrow which falls to the ground 
contains in its structure innumerable marks of the 
Divine care and kindness, he will be persuaded that 
every individual, however apparently humble and in- 
significant, will have his moral being dealt with ac- 
cording to the laws of God's wisdom and love ; will 
be enlightened, supported, and raised, if he use the 
appointed means which God's administration of the 
world of moral light and good offers to his use. 



223 



CHAPTER IV. 

On the Impression produced by the Contemplation of 
Laws of Nature; or, on the Conviction that Law 
implies Mind. 

The various trains of thought and reasoning which 
lead men from a consideration of the natural world 
to the conviction of the existence, the power, the 
providence of God, do not require, for the most part, 
any long or laboured deduction, to give them their 
effect on the mind. On the contrary, they have, in 
every age and country, produced their impression 
on multitudes w T ho have not instituted any formal 
reasonings upon the subject, and probably upon 
many who have not put their conclusions in the 
shape of any express propositions. The persuasion 
of a superior intelligence and will, which manifests 
itself in every part of the material world, is, as is 
well known, so widely diffused and deeply infixed, as 
to have made it a question among speculative men 
whether the notion of such a power is not universal 
and innate. It is our business to show only how 
plainly and how universally such a belief results from 
the study of the appearances about us. That in many 
nations, in many periods, this persuasion has been 
mixed up with much that was erroneous and per- 
verse in the opinions of the intellect or the fictions of 
fancy, does not weaken the force of such consent. 
The belief of a supernatural and presiding power 
runs through all these errors : and while the perver- 
sions are manifestly the work of caprice and illusion, 
and vanish at the first ray of sober inquiry, the belief 
itself is substantial and consistent, and grows in 
strength uponr every new examination. It was the 
firmness and solidity of the conviction of something 



224 



RELIGIOUS VIEWS, 



Divine which gave a hold and permanence to the 
figments of so many false divinities. And those who 
have traced the progress of human thought on other 
subjects, will not think it strange, that while the fun- 
damental persuasion of a Deity was thus irremove- 
ably seated in the human mind, the developement of 
this conception into a consistent, pure, and steadfast 
belief in one Almighty and Holy Father and God. 
should be long missed, or never attained, by the 
struggle of the human faculties : should require long 
reflection to mature it, and the aid of revelation to 
establish it in the world. 

The view 7 of the universe which we have princi- 
pally had occasion to present to the reader, is that 
in which we consider its appearances as reducible to 
certain fixed and general laws. Availing ourselves 
of some of the lights which modern science supplies, 
we have endeavoured to show that the adaptation of 
such laws to each other, and their fitness to promote 
the harmonious and beneficial course of the world, 
may be traced, wherever we can discover the laws 
themselves: and that the conceptions of the Divine 
Power, Goodness and Superintendence which we 
thus form, agree in a remarkable manner with the 
views of the Supreme Being, to which reason, en- 
lightened by the divine revelation, has led. 

But we conceive that the general impressions of 
mankind would go further than a mere assent to the 
argument as we have thus stated it. To most per- 
sons it appears that the mere existence of a law con- 
necting and governing any class of phenomena, im- 
plies a presiding intelligence which has preconceived 
and established the law. When events are regulated 
by precise rules of time and space, of number and 
measure, men conceive these rules to be the evidence 
of thought and mind, even without discovering in the 
rules any peculiar adaptations, or without supposing 
their purpose to be known. 

The origin and the validity of such an impression 
on the human mind may appear to some matters of 



LAW IMPLIES MIND. 



225 



abstruse and doubtful speculation : yet the tendency 
to such a belief prevails strongly and widely, both 
#mong the common class of minds whose thoughts 
are casually and unsystematically turned to such 
subjects, and among philosophers to whom laws of 
nature are habitual subjects of contemplation. We 
conceive therefore that such a tendency may deserve 
to be briefly illustrated ; and we trust also that some 
attention to this point may be of service in throwing 
light upon the true relation of the study of nature to 
the belief in God. 

L A very slight attention shows us how readily 
order and regularity suggest to a common apprehen- 
sion the operation of a calm and untroubled intelli- 
gence presiding over the course of events. Thus the 
materialist poet, in accounting for the belief in the 
Gods, though he does not share it, cannot deny the 
habitual effect of this manifestation. 

Preeterea cceli rationes ordine certo 
Et varia annorum cernebant tempora vorti; 
Nec poterant quibus id fieret cognoscere caussis. 
Ergo perfugium sibi habebant Omnia Divis 
Tradere et illorum nutu facere omnia flecti. 

LucreT. v. 118-2. 

They saw the skies in constant order inn, 
The varied seasons and the circling 1 sun, 
Apparent rule, with unappar^it cause, 
And thus they sought t^ods the source of laws. 

The sar^ ieeling may be traced in the early my- 
thology of a large portion of the globe. We might 
easily, taking advantage of the labours of learned 
men, exemplify this in the case of the oriental na- 
tions, of Greece, and of many other countries. Nor 
does there Appear much difficulty in pointing out the 
error of those who have maintained that all religion 
had its origin in the worship of the stars and the ele- 
ments ; and who have insinuated that all such im- 
pressions are unfounded, inasmuch as these are cer- 
tainly not right objects of human worship. The 



226 



RELIGIOUS VIEWS. 



religious feeling, the conviction of a supernatural 
power, of an intelligence connecting and directing 
the phenomena of the world, had not its origin in 
the worship of sun, or stars, or elements ; but was 
itself the necessary though unexpressed foundation 
of all worship, and all forms of false, as well as true, 
religion. The contemplation of the earth and hea- 
vens called into action this religious tendency in 
man ; and to say ihat the worship of the material 
w r orid formed or suggested this religious feeling, is 
to invert the order of possible things in the most un- 
philosophical manner. Idolatry is not the source of 
the belief in God, but is a compound of the persuasion 
of a supernatural government, with certain extrava- 
gant and baseless conceptions as to the manner in 
%vhieh this government is exercised. 

We will quote a passage from an author who has 
Illustrated at considerable length the hypothesis thai 
all religious belief is derived from the worship of the 
elements. 

" Light, and darkness its perpetual contrast ; the 
succession of days and nights, the periodical order 
of the seasons; the career of the brilliant luminary 
which regelates their course ; that of the moon his 
sister and ftiql; night, and the innumerable fires 
which she lights »q the blue vault of heaven ; the re- 
volutions of the stars, which exhibit them for a longer 
or a shorter period above cm* horizon ; the constancy 
of this period in the fixed starts, its variety in the 
wandering stars, the planets ; their direet and retro- 
grade course, their momentary rest; the phases of the 
moon w 7 axing, full, waning, divested of all light : the 
progressive motion of the sun upwards, downwards ; 
the successive order of the rising and setting of the 
fixed stars, w r hich mark the different points of the 
course of the sun, while the various aspects which 
the earth itself assumes mark, here below 7 also, the 
same periods of the suirs annual motion; * ;* * all 
these different pictures, displayed before the eyes of 
man, formed the great and magnificent spectacle by 



LAW IMPLIES MIND. 



227 



which I suppose him surrounded at the momont when 
he is about to create his gods"* 

What is this (divested of its wanton levity of ex- 
pression) but to say, that when man has so far traced 
the course of nature as to be irresistibly impressed 
with the existence of order, law, variety in constancy, 
and fixity in change; of relations of form and space, 
duration and succession, cause and consequence, 
among the objects which surround him ; there springs 
up in his breast, unbidden and irresistibly, the thought 
of superintending intelligence, of a mind which com- 
prehended from the first and completely that which 
he late and partially comes to know? The worship 
of earth and sky, of the host of heaven and the in- 
fluences of nature, is not the ultimate and funda- 
mental fact in the early history of the religious im- 
pressions of mankind. These are but derivative 
streams, impure and scanty, from the fountain of re- 
ligious feeling w T hich appears to be disclosed to us 
by the contemplation of the universe, as the seat of 
law and the manifestation of intellect. Time sug- 
gests to man the thought of eternity ; space of in- 
finity ; law of intelligence : order of purpose ; and 
however difficult and long a task it may be to deve- 
lope these suggestions into clear convictions, these 
thoughts are the real parents of our natural religious 
belief. The only relation between true religion and 
the worship of the elemental world is, that the latter 
is the partial and gross perversion, the former the 
consistent and pure developement of the same origi- 
nal idea. 

2. The connexion of the laws of the material world 
with an intelligence which preconceived and insti- 
tuted the law, which is thus, as we perceive, so gene- 
rally impressed on the common apprehension of 
mankind, has also struck no less those who have 
studied nature with a more systematic attention, and 
with the peculiar views which belong to science, 

* Dupuis. Origine des Cultes. 



228 



RELIGIOUS VIEWS. 



The laws which such persons learn and study, seem, 
indeed, most naturally to lead to the conviction of 
an intelligence which originally gave to the law its 
form. 

What we call a general law is, in truth, a form of 
expression including a number of facts of like kind. 
The facts are separate ; the unity of view by which 
we associate them, the character of generality and 
of law, resides in those relations which are the ob- 
ject of the intellect. The law once apprehended by 
us, takes in our minds the place of the facts them- 
selves, and is said to govern or determine them, be- 
cause it determines our anticipations of what they 
will be. But we cannot, it would seem, conceive a 
law, founded on such intelligible relations, to govern 
and determine the facts themselves, any otherwise 
than by supposing also an intelligence by which these 
relations are contemplated, and these consequences 
realized. We cannot then represent to ourselves the 
universe governed by general laws otherwise than 
by conceiving an intelligent and conscious Deity, by 
whom these laws were originally contemplated, es- 
tablished, and applied. 

This perhaps will appear more clear, when it is 
considered that the laws of which we speak are often 
of an abstruse and complex kind, depending upon re- 
lations of space, time, number, and other properties, 
which we perceive by great attention and thought. 
These relations are often combined so variously and 
curiously, that the most subtle reasonings and calcu- 
lations w^hich we can form are requisite in order to 
trace their results. Can such laws be conceived to 
be instituted without any exercise of knowlege and 
intelligence ? Can material objects apply geometry 
and calculation to themselves ? Can the lenses of the 
eye, for instance, be formed and adjusted with an 
exact suitableness to their refractive powers, while 
there is in the agency which has framed them, no 
consciousness of the laws of light, of the course of 



LAW IMPLIES MIND. 



229 



rays, of the visible properties of things ? This ap- 
pears to be altogether inconceivable. 

Every particle of matter possesses an almost end- 
less train of properties, each acting according to its 
peculiar and fixed laws. For every atom of the same 
kind of matter these laws are invariably and per- 
petually the same, while for the different kinds of 
matter the difference of these properties is equally 
constant. This constant and precise resemblance, 
this variation equally constant and equally regular, 
suggest irresistibly the conception of some cause, in- 
dependent of the atoms themselves, by which their 
similarity and dissimilarity, the agreement and dif- 
ference of their deportment under the same circum- 
stances, have been determined. Such a view of the 
constitution of matter, as is observed by an eminent 
writer of our own time, effectually destroys the idea 
of its eternal and self-existent nature, " by giving to 
each of its atoms the essential characters, at once, of 
a manufactured article and a subordinate agent"* 

That such an impression, and the consequent be- 
lief in a divine Author of the universe, by whom its 
laws were ordained and established, does result from 
the philosophical contemplation of nature, will, we 
trust, become still more evident by tracing the effect 
produced upon men's minds by the discovery of such 
laws and properties as those of which we have been 
speaking; and we shall therefore make a few ob- 
servations on this subject. 

* Herschel on the Study of Nat. Phil. Art. 28. 



230 



CHAPTER V. 

On Inductive Habits ; or, on the Impression produced 
on Men's Minds by discovering Laws of Nature. 

The object of physical science is to discover such 
laws and properties as those of which we have spoken 
in the last chapter. In this task, undoubtedly a pro- 
gress has been made on which we may well look 
with pleasure and admiration ; yet we cannot hesi- 
tate to confess that the extent of our knowledge on 
such subjects bears no proportion to that of our igno- 
rance. Of the great and comprehensive laws which 
rule over the widest provinces of natural phenomena, 
few have yet been disclosed to us. And the names 
of the philosophers, whose high office it has been to 
detect such laws, are even yet far from numerous, 
In looking back at the path* by which science has 
advanced to its present position, we see the names of 
the great discoverers shine out like luminaries, few 
and scattered along the line : by far the largest por- 
tion of the space is occupied by those whose compa- 
ratively humble office it was to verify, to develope, 
to apply the general truths which the discoverers 
brought to light. 

It will readily be conceived that it is no easy mat- 
ter, if it be possible, to analyse the process of thought 
by which laws of nature have thus been discovered; 
a process which, as we have said, has been in so few 
instances successfully performed. We shall not here 
make any attempt at such an analysis. But without 
this, we conceive it may be shown that the constitu- 
tion and employment of the mind on which such dis- 
coveries depend, are friendly to that belief in a wise 
and good Creator and Governor of the world, which 
it has been our object to illustrate and confirm. And 



INDUCTIVE HABITS. 



231 



if it should appear that those who see further than 
their fellows into the bearings and dependencies of 
the material things and elements by which they are 
surrounded, have also been, in almost every case, 
earnest and forward in acknowledging the relation 
of all things to a supreme intelligence and will ; we 
shall be fortified in our persuasion that the true 
scientific perception of the general constitution of 
the universe, and of the mode in which events are 
produced and connected, is fitted to lead us to the 
conception and belief of God. 

Let us consider for a moment what takes place in 
the mind of a student of nature when he attains to 
the perception of a law previously unknown, con- 
necting the appearances which he has studied. Amass 
of facts which before seemed incoherent and unmean- 
ing, assume, on a sudden, the aspect of connexion 
and intelligible order. Thus, when Kepler discover- 
ed the law which connects the periodic limes with 
the diameters of the planetary orbits; or, when New- 
ton showed how this and all other known mathemati- 
cal properties of the solar system were included in 
the law of universal gravitation according to the in- 
verse square of the distance; particular circum- 
stances which, before, were merely matter of inde- 
pendent record, became, from that time, indissolubly 
conjoined by the laws so discovered. The separate 
occurrences and facts, which might hitherto have 
seemed casual and without reason, were now seen 
to be all exemplifications of the same truth. The 
change is like that which takes place when we at- 
tempt to read a sentence written in difficult or im- 
perfect characters. For a time the separate parts 
appear to be disjointed and arbitrary marks; the 
suggestions of possible meanings, which succeed 
each other in the mind, fail, as fast as they are tried, 
in combining or accounting for these symbols : but 
at last the true supposition occurs ; some words are 
found to coincide with the meaning thus assumed ; 
the whole line of letters appear to take definite 



232 



RELIGIOUS VIEWS, 



shapes and to leap into their proper places ; and the 
truth of the happy conjecture seems to flash upon us 
from every part of the inscription. 

The discovery of laws of nature, truly and satis- 
factorily connecting and explaining phenomena, of 
w 7 hich, before, the connexion and causes had been 
unknown, displays much of a similar process, of ob- 
scurity succeeded by evidence, of effort and per- 
plexity followed by conviction and repose. The 
innumerable conjectures and failures, the glimpses 
of light perpetually opening and as often clouded 
over, the unwearied perseverance and inexhaustible 
ingenuity exercised by Kepler in seeking for the 
laws which he finally discovered, are, thanks to his 
communicative disposition, curiously exhibited in his 
works, and have been narrated by his biographers ; 
and such efforts and alternations, modified by cha- 
racter and circumstances, must generally precede 
the detection of any of the wider law's and depend- 
encies by which the events of the universe are re- 
gulated. We may readily conceive the satisfaction 
and delight with which, after this perplexity and 
struggle, the discoverer finds himself in light and 
tranquillity; able to look at the province of nature 
which has been the subject of his study, and to read 
there an intelligible connexion, a sufficing reason, 
wdiich no one before him had understood or appre- 
hended. 

This step so much resembles the mode in which 
one intelligent being understands and apprehends the 
conceptions of another, that we cannot be surprised 
if those persons in whose minds such a process has 
taken place, have been most ready to acknowledge the 
existence and operation of a superintending intelli- 
gence, w 7 hose ordinances it was their employment to 
study. When they had just read a sentence of the 
table of the laws of the universe, they could not 
doubt whether it had had a legislator. 'When they 
had deciphered there a comprehensive and substan- 
tial truth, they could not believe that the letters had 



INDUCTIVE HABITS. 



233 



been thrown together by chance. They could not but 
readily acknowledge that what their faculties had 
enabled them to read, must have been written by 
some higher and profounder mind. And according- 
ly, we conceive it will be found, on examining the 
works of those to whom we owe our knowledge of 
the laws of nature, and especially of the wider and 
more comprehensive laws, that such persons have 
been strongly and habitually impressed with the per- 
suasion of a Divine Purpose and Power which had 
regulated the events which they had attended to, and 
ordained the laws which they had detected. 

To those who have pursued science without reach- 
ing the rank of discoverers;— who have possessed a 
derivative knowledge of the laws of nature which 
others had disclosed, and have employed themselves 
in tracing the consequences of such laws, and syste- 
matizing the body of truth thus produced, the above 
description does not apply; and we have not there- 
fore in these cases the same ground for anticipating 
the same frame of mind. If among men of science 
of this class, the persuasion of a supreme Intelli- 
gence has at some periods been less vivid and less 
universal, than in that higher class of which we have 
before spoken, the fact, so far as it has existed, may 
perhaps be in some degree accounted for. But whe- 
ther the view which we have to give of the mental 
peculiarities of men whose science is of this deriva- 
tive kind be well founded, and whether the account 
we have above offered of that which takes place in 
the minds of original discoverers of laws in scientific 
researches be true, or not, it will probably be con- 
sidered a matter of some interest to point out histo- 
rically that in fact, such discoverers have been pe- 
culiarly in the habit of considering the world as the 
work of God. This we shall now proceed to do. 

As we have already said, the names of great dis- 
coverers are not very numerous. The sciences 
which we may look upon as having reached or at 
least approached their complete and finished form, 

u 2 



234 



RELIGIOUS VIEWS. 



are Mechanics, Hydrostatics, and Physical Astro- 
nomy. Galileo is the father of modern Mechanics: 
Copernicus. Kepler, and Xewton are the great names 
which mark the progress of Astronomy. Hydro- 
statics shared in a great measure the fortunes of the 
related science of Mechanics : Boyle and Pascal 
were the persons mainly active in developing its 
more peculiar principles. The other branches of 
knowledge which belong to natural philosophy, as 
Chemistry and Meteorology, are as yet imperfect, 
and perhaps infant sciences ; and it would be rash 
to presume to select, in them, names of equal pre- 
eminence with those above mentioned: but it may 
not be difficult to show, with sufficient evidence, that 
the effect of science upon the authors of science is. 
in these subjects as in the former ones, far other 
than to alienate their minds from religious trains of 
thought, and a habit of considering the world as the 
work of God. 

We shall not dwell much on the first of the above 
mentioned great names. Galileo; for his scientific 
merit consisted rather in adopting the sound philoso- 
phy of others, as in the case of the Copernican sys- 
tem, and in combating prevalent errors, as in the 
case of the Aristotelian doctrines concerning motion, 
than in any marked and prominent discovery of new 
principles. Moreover the mechanical laws which he 
had a share in bringing to light, depending as they 
did. rather on detached experiments and transient 
facts, than on observation of the general course of 
the universe, could not so clearly suggest any reflec- 
tion on the government of the world at that period, 
as they did afterwards when Xewton showed their 
bearing on the cosmical system. Yet Galileo, as a 
man of philosophical and inventive mind, who pro- 
duced a great effect on the progress of physical 
knowledge, is a person whose opinions must natu- 
rally interest us. engaged in our present course of 
reasoning. There is in his writings little which bears 
upon religious views, as there is in the nature of his 



INDUCTIVE HABITS. 



235 



works little to lead him to such subjects. Yet strong 
expressions of piety are not wanting, both in his let- 
ters, and in his published treatises. The persecution 
which he underwent, on account of his writings in 
favour of the Copernican system, was grounded, not 
on his opposition to the general truths of natural re- 
ligion, which is our main concern at present, nor 
even on any supposed rejection of any articles of 
Christian faith, but on the alleged discrepancy be- 
tween his adopted astronomical views and the de- 
clarations of scripture. Some of his remarks may 
interest the reader. 

In his third dialogue on the Copernican system he 
has occasion to speak of the opinion which holds all 
parts of the world to be framed for man's use alone : 
and to this he says, " I would that w r e should not so 
shorten the arm of God in the government of human 
affairs ; but that we should rest in this, that we are 
certain that God and nature are so occupied in the 
government of human affairs, that they could not 
more attend to us if they were charged with the 
care of the human race alone." In the same spirit, 
when some objected to the asserted smallness of the 
Medicean stars, or satellites of Jupiter, and urged 
this as a reason why they were unworthy the regard 
of philosophers, he replied that they are the works 
of God's power, the objects of His care, and there- 
fore may well be considered as sublime subjects for 
man's study. 

In the Dialogues on Mechanics, there occur those 
observations concerning the use of the air-bladder in 
fishes, and concerning the adaptation of the size of 
animals to the strength of the materials of which 
they are framed, which have often since been adopt- 
ed by writers on the wisdom of Providence. The 
last of the dialogues on the system of the world is 
closed by a religious reflection, put in the mouth of 
the interlocutor who usually expresses Galileo's own 
opinions. " While it is permitted us to speculate con- 
cerning the constitution of the world, we are also 



236 



RELIGIOUS VIEWS. 



taught (perhaps in order that the activity of the hu- 
man mind may not pause or languish) that our powers 
do not enable us to comprehend the works of His 
hands. May success therefore attend this intellec- 
tual exercise, thus permitted and appointed for us ; 
by which we recognize and admire the greatness of 
God the more, in proportion as we find ourselves the 
less able to penetrate the profound abysses of his 
wisdom." And that this train of thought was ha- 
bitual to the philosopher we have abundant evidence 
in many other parts of his writings. He had already 
said in the same dialogue, " Nature (or God, as he 
elsewhere speaks) employs means in an admirable 
and inconceivable manner; admirable, that is, and 
inconceivable to us, but not to her, who brings about 
with consummate facility and simplicity things which 
affect our intellect with infinite astonishment. That 
which is to us most difficult to understand is to her 
most easy to execute." 

The establishment of the Copernican and New- 
tonian views of the motions of the solar system and 
their causes, were probably the occasions on which 
religious but unphilosophical men entertained the 
strongest apprehensions that the belief in the govern- 
ment of God may be weakened when we thus " thrust 
some mechanic cause into his place." It is there- 
fore fortunate that we can show, not only that this 
ought not to occur, from the reason of the thing, but 
also that in fact the persons who are the leading 
characters in the progress of these opinions were 
men of clear and fervent piety. 

In the case of Copernicus himself it does not ap- 
pear that, originally, any apprehensions were enter- 
tained of any dangerous discrepancy between his 
doctrines and the truths of religion, either natural or 
revealed. The work which contains these memora- 
ble discoveries was addressed to Pope Paul III., the 
head, at that time, (1543) of the religious world ; and 
was published, as the author states in the preface, at 
the urgent entreaty of friends, one of whom was a 



INDUCTIVE HABITS. 



237 



cardinal, and another a bishop.* " I know," he says, 
" that the thoughts of a philosopher are far removed 
from the judgment of the vulgar ; since it is his study 
to search out truth in all things, as far as that is per- 
mitted by God to human reason." And though the 
doctrines are for the most part stated as portions of 
a mathematical calculation, the explanation of the 
arrangement by which the sun is placed in the cen- 
tre of the system is accompanied by a natural re- 
flection of a religious cast; " Who in this fair temple 
would place this lamp in any other or better place 
than there whence it may illuminate the whole? 
We find then under this ordination an admirable 
symmetry of the world, and a certain harmonious 
connexion of the motion and magnitude of the orbs, 
such as in any other way cannot be found. Thus 
the progressions and regressions of the planets all 
arise from the same cause, the motion of the earth. 
And that no such movements are seen in the fixed 
stars, argues their immense distance from us, which 
causes the apparent magnitude of the earth's annual 
course to become evanescent. So great, in short* 
is this divine fabric of the great and good God;"f 
" this best and most regular artificer of the universe," 
as he elsewhere speaks. 

Kepler was the person, who by further studying 
" the connexion of the motions and magnitude of the 
orbs," to which Copernicus had thus drawn the at- 
tention of the astronomers, detected the laws of this 
connexion, and prepared the way for the discovery, 
by Newton, of the mechanical laws and causes of 
such motions. Kepler was a man of strong and live- 
ly piety; and the exhortation which he addresses to 

* Amici me cunctantem atque etiam reluctantem, retraxerunt, 
inter quos primus fait Nicolaus Schonbergius, Cardinalis Ca« 
puanus, in omni genere literatum Celebris; proximus ille vir mei 
amantissimus Tidemannus Gisius, episeopus Culmensis, sa- 
crarum ut est et omnium bonarum literarum studiosissimusc— 
De Revolutionibus. Prcef. ad Paulum HL 

| Lib. i. cx, 



238 



RELIGIOUS VIEWS. 



his reader before entering on the exposition of some 
of his discoveries, may be quoted not only for its 
earnestness but its reasonableness also. " I beseech 
my reader, that not unmindful of the divine goodness 
bestowed on man, he do with me praise and cele- 
brate the wisdom and greatness of the Creator, which 
I open to him from a more inward explication of the 
form of the w T orld, from a searching of causes, from 
a detection of the errors of vision: and that thus, not 
only in the firmness and stability of the earth he per- 
ceive w T ith gratitude the preservation of all living 
things in nature as the gift of God, but also that in 
its motion, so recondite, so admirable, he acknowledge 
the wisdom of the Creator. But him who is too dull 
to receive this science, or too weak to believe the 
Copernican system without harm to his piety, him, I 
say, I advise that, leaving the school of astronomy, 
and condemning, if he please, any doctrines of the 
philosophers, he follow his own path, and desist from 
this wandering through the universe, and lifting up 
his natural eyes, with which alone he can see, pour 
himself out from his own heart in praise of God the 
Creator; being certain that he gives no less worship 
to God than the astronomer, to whom God has given 
to see more clearly with his inward eye, and w T ho, 
for what he has himself discovered, both can and 
will glorify God." 

The next great step in our knowledge of the uni- 
verse, the discovery of the mechanical causes by 
which its motions are produced, and of their laws, 
has in modern times sometimes been supposed, both 
by the friends of religion and by others, to be unfa- 
vourable to the impression of an intelligent first cause. 
That such a supposition is founded in error we have 
offered what appear to us insurmountable reasons for 
believing. That in the mind of the great discoverer 
of this mechanical cause, Newton, the impression of 
a creating and presiding Deity was confirmed, not 
shaken, by all his discoveries, is so well known that 
it is almost superfluous to insist upon the fact. His 



INDUCTIVE HABITS. 



239 



views of the tendency of science invested it with no 
dangers of this kind. " The business of natural phi- 
losophy is," he says, (Optics, Qu. 28,) "to argue from 
phenomena without feigning hypotheses, and to de- 
duce cause from effects, till we come to the very first 
cause, which is certainly not mechanical. 9 ' " Though 
every true step made in this philosophy brings us not 
immediately to the knowledge of the first cause, yet 
it brings us nearer to it, and is on that account highly 
to be valued." The Scholium, or note, which con- 
cludes his great work, the Principia, is a well known 
and most striking evidence on this point, " This beau- 
tiful system of sun, planets, and comets, could have 
its origin in no other way than by the purpose and 
command of an intelligent and powerful Being. He 
governs all things, not as the soul of the world, but 
as the lord of the universe. He is not only God, but 
Lord or Governor. We know him only by his proper- 
ties and attributes, by the wise and admirable struc- 
ture of things around us, and by their final causes ; 
we admire him on account of his perfections, we 
venerate and worship him on account of his go- 
vernment." . 

Without making any further quotations, it must be 
evident to the reader that the succession of great phi- 
losophers through whom mankind have been led to 
the knowledge of the greatest of scientific truths, the 
law of universal gravitation, did, for. their parts, see 
the truths which they disclosed to men in such a light 
I that their religious feelings, their reference of the 
world to an intelligent Creator and Preserver, their 
admiration of his attributes, were exalted rather than 
impaired by the insight which they obtained into the 
structure of the universe. 

Having shown this with regard to the most perfect 
portion of human knowledge, our knowledge of the 
motions of the solar system, we shall adduce a few 
other passages, illustrating the prevalence of the 
same fact in other departments of experimental 
science ; although, for reasons which have already 



240 



RELIGIOUS VIEWS, 



been intimated, we conceive that sciences of experi- 
ment do not conduct so obviously as sciences of ob- 
servation to the impression of a Divine Legislator 
of the material world. 

The science of Hydrostatics was constructed in a 
great measure by the founders of the sister science 
of Mechanics. Of those who were employed in ex- 
perimentally establishing the principles pecuharly 
belonging to the doctrine of fluids, Pascal and Boyle 
are two of the most eminent names. That these two 
great philosophers were not only religious, but both 
of them remarkable for their fervent and pervading 
devotion, is too well known to be. dwelt on. With 
regard to Pascal, however, we ought not perhaps to 
pass over an opinion of his, that the existence of 
God cannot be proved from the external world. " I 
do not undertake to prove this," says he, 4< not only 
because I do not feel myself sufficiently strong to find 
in nature that which shall convince obstinate atheists, 
but because such knowledge without Jesus Christ is 
useless and steril." It is obvious that such a state 
of mind would prevent this writer from encouraging 
or dwelling upon the grounds of natural religion; 
while yet he himself is an example of that which we 
wish to illustrate, that those who have obtained the 
furthest insight into nature, have been in all ages 
firm believers in God. " Nature," he says, in another 
place, " has perfections in order to show that she is 
the image of God, and defects in order to show that 
she is only his image."* 

Boyle was not only a most pious man as well as a 
great philosopher, but he exerted himself very often 
and earnestly in his writings to show the bearing 
of his natural philosophy upon his views of the 
Divine attributes, and of the government of the 
world. Many of these dissertations convey trains of 
thought and reasoning which have never been sur- 
passed for their combination of judicious sobriety in 



* Pensees, Art. viii. 1. 



INDUCTIVE HABITS. 



241 



not pressing his arguments too far, with fervent de- 
votion in his conceptions of the Divine nature. As 
examples of these merits, we might adduce almost 
any portion of his tracts on these subjects; for in- 
stance, his " Inquiry into the Final Causes of Natural 
Things;" his " Free Inquiry into the Vulgar Notion 
of Nature;" his " Christian Virtuoso;" and his essay 
entitled "The High Veneration Man's Intellect owes 
to God." It would be superfluous to quote at any 
length from these works. We may observe, however, 
that he notices that general fact w T hich we are at 
present employed in exemplifying, that " in almost all 
ages and countries the generality of philosophers 
and contemplative men were persuaded cf the ex- 
istence of a Deity from the consideration of the phe- 
nomena of the universe ; whose fabric and conduct 
they rationally concluded could not justly be as- 
cribed either to chance or to any other cause than a 
Divine Being." And in speaking of the religious 
uses of science, he says : " Though I am willing to 
grant that some impressions of God's wisdom are so 
conspicuous that even a superficial philosopher may 
thence infer that the author of such w 7 orks must be a 
wise agent ; yet how wise an agent he has in these 
works expressed himself to be, none but an experi- 
mental philosopher can well discern. And 'tis not by 
a slight survey, but by a diligent and skilful scrutiny, 
of the works of God, that a man must be, by a ra- 
tional and affective conviction, engaged to acknow- 
ledge that the author of nature 6 is wonderful in 
counsel, and excellent in working.' " 

After the mechanical properties of fluids, the laws 
of the operation of the chemical and physical pro- 
perties of the elements about us, offer themselves to 
our notice. The relations of heat and of moisture in 
particular, which play so important a part, as we 
have seen, in the economy of our world, have Jbeen 
the subject of various researches ; and they have led 
to views of the operation of such agents, some of 
which we have endeavoured to present to the reader, 

x 



242 



RELIGIOUS VIEWS. 



and to point out the remarkable arrangements by 
which their beneficial operation is carried on. That 
the discoverers of the laws by which such operations 
are regulated, were not insensible to the persuasion 
of a Divine care and contrivance which those ar- 
rangements suggest, is what we should expect, in 
agreement with what we have already said, and it is 
what we find. Among the names of the philosophers 
to whom we owe our knowledge on these subjects, 
there are none greater than those of Black, the dis- 
coverer of the laws of latent heat, and Dalton, who 
first gave us a true view of the mode in which watery 
vapour exists and operates in the atmosphere. With 
regard to the former of these philosophers, we shall 
quote Dr. Thomson's account of the views which the 
laws of latent heat suggested to the discoverer.* 
" Dr. Black quickly perceived the vast importance of 
this discovery, and took a pleasure in laying before 
his students a view of the beneficial effects of this 
habitude of heat in the economy of nature. During 
the summer season a vast magazine of heat is accu- 
mulated in the water, which by gradually emerging 
during congelation serves to temper the cold of win- 
ter. Were it not for this accumulation of heat in 
water and other bodies, the sun would no sooner go 
a few degrees to the south of the equator than we 
should feel all the horrors of winter." 

In the same spirit are Mr. Dalton's reflections, 
after pointing out the laws which regulate the balance 
of evaporation and rain,f which he himself first 
clearly explained. " It is scarcely possible," says he, 
" to contemplate without admiration the beautiful 
system of nature by which the surface of the earth 
is continually supplied with water, and that unceas- 
ing circulation of a fluid so essentially necessary to 
the very being of the animal and vegetable kingdom 
takes place." i 

* Thomson's Hist, of Chemistry, vol. i. 321. 
f Manch. Mem. vol. v. p. 346. 



DEDUCTIVE HABITS. 



243 



Such impressions appear thus to rise irresistibly 
in the breasts of men, when they obtain a sight, for 
the first time, of the varied play and comprehensive 
connexions of the laws by which the business of the 
material world is carried on and its occurrences 
brought to pass. To dwell upon or develope such 
reflections is not here our business. Their general 
prevalence in the minds of those to w 7 hom these first 
views of new truths are granted, has been, we trust, 
sufficiently illustrated. Nor are the names adduced 
above, distinguished as they are, brought forwards 
as authorities merely. We do not claim for the 
greatest, discoverers in the realms of science any 
immunity from error. In their general opinions they 
may, as others may, judge or reason ill. The arti- 
cles of their religious belief may be as easily and as 
widely as of other men's, imperfect, perverted, un- 
profitable. But on this one point, the tendency of 
our advances in scientific knowledge of the universe 
to lead us up to a belief in a most wise maker and 
master of the universe, we conceive that they who 
make these advances, and who feel, as an original 
impression, that which others feel only by receiving 
their teaching, must be looked to with a peculiar 
attention and respect. And what their impressions 
have commonly been, we have thus endeavoured to 
show r . 



CHAPTER VI. 

On Deductive Habits ; or, on the Impression produced 
on Men's Minds by tracing the consequences of as- 
certained Laws. 

The opinion illustrated in the last chapter, that 
the advances which men make in science tend to im- 
press upon them the reality of the Divine govern- 
ment of the world, has often been controverted. 



244 



RELIGIOUS VIEWS. 



Complaints have been made, and especially of late 
years, that the growth of piety has not always been 
commensurate with the growth of knowledge, in the 
minds of those who make nature their study. Views 
of an irreligious character have been entertained, it 
is sometimes said, by persons eminently well in- 
structed in all the discoveries of modern times, no 
less than by the superficial and ignorant. Those 
who have been supposed to deny or to doubt the ex- 
istence, the providence, the attributes of God, have 
in many cases been men of considerable eminence 
and celebrity for their attainments in science. The 
opinion that this is the case, appears to be exten- 
sively diffused, and this persuasion has probably often 
produced inquietude and grief in the breasts of pious 
and benevolent men. 

This opinion, concerning the want of religious 
convictions among those who have made natural 
philosophy their leading pursuit, has probably gone 
far beyond the limits of the real fact. But if we 
allow that there are any strong cases to countenance 
such an opinion, it may be worth our w r hile to con- 
sider how far they admit of any satisfactory expla- 
nation. The fact appears at first sight to be at vari- 
ance with the view we have given of the impression 
produced by scientific discovery; and it is moreover 
always a matter of uneasiness and regret, to have 
men of eminent talents and knowledge opposed to 
doctrines which we consider as important truths. 

We conceive that an explanation of such cases, 
if they should occur, may be found in a very cu- 
rious and important circumstance belonging to the 
process by which our physical sciences are formed. 
The first discovery of new general truths, and the 
developement of these truths when once obtained* 
are two operations extremely different ; imply differ- 
ent mental habits, and may easily be associated with 
different views and convictions on points out of the 
reach of scientific demonstration. There would 
therefore be nothing surprising, or inconsistent with 



DEDUCTIVE HABITS. 



245 



what we have maintained above, if it should appear 
that while original discoverers of laws of nature are 
peculiarly led, as we have seen, to believe the ex- 
istence of a supreme intelligence and purpose ; the 
far greater number of cultivators of science, whose 
employment it is to learn from others these general 
laws, and to trace, combine, and apply their conse- 
quences, should have no clearness of conviction or 
security from error on this subject, beyond what be- 
longs to persons of any other class. 

This will, perhaps, become somewhat more evi- 
dent by considering a little more closely the distinc- 
tion of the two operations of discovery and deve- 
lopement, of which we have spoken above, and the 
tendency which the habitual prosecution of them 
may be expected to produce in the thoughts and 
views of the student. 

We have already endeavoured in some measure to 
describe that which takes place when a new law of 
nature is discovered. A number. of facts in which, 
before, order and connexion did not appear at all, or 
appeared by partial and contradictory glimpses, are 
brought into a point of view in which order and con- 
nexion become their essential character. It is seen 
that each fact is but a different manifestation of the 
same principle ; that each particular is that which it 
is, in virtue of the same general truth. The inscrip- 
tion is deciphered; the enigma is guessed; the prin- 
ciple is understood; the truth is enunciated. 

When this step is once made, it becomes possible 
to deduce from the truth thus established, a train of 
consequences often in no small degree long and com- 
plex. The process of making these inferences may 
properly be described by the word Deduction, while 
the very different process by which a new principle 
is collected from an assemblage of facts, has been 
termed Induction ; the truths so obtained and their 
consequences constitute the results of the Inductive 
Philosophy ; which is frequently and rightly described 
as a science which ascends from particular facts to 

x 2 



246 



RELIGIOUS VIEWS. 



general principles, and then descends again from 
these general principles to particular applications and 
exemplifications. 

While the great and important labours by which 
science is really advanced consist in the successive 
steps of the inductive ascent in the discovery of new 
laws perpetually more and more general ; by far the 
greater part of our books of physical science una- 
voidably consists in deductive reasoning, exhibiting 
the consequences and applications of the laws which 
have been discovered ; and the greater part of writers 
upon science have their minds employed in this pro- 
cess of deduction and application. 

This is true of many of those who are considered* 
and justly, as distinguished and profound philoso- 
phers. In the mechanical philosophy, that science 
which applies the properties of matter and the 
laws of motion to the explanation of the phenomena 
of the world, this is peculiarly the case. The laws, 
when once discovered, occupy little room in their 
statement, and when no longer contested, are not 
felt to need a lengthened proof. But their conse- 
quences require far more room and far more intel- 
lectual labour. If w r e take, for example, the laws of 
motion and the law of universal gravitation, we can 
express in a few lines, that which, when developed, 
represents and explains an innumerable mass of na- 
tural phenomena. But here the course of develope- 
ment is necessai'ily so long, the reasoning contains 
so many steps, the considerations on which it rests 
are so minute and refined, the complication of cases 
and of consequences is so vast, and even the involu- 
tion arising from the properties of space and number 
so serious, that the most consummate subtlety, the 
most active invention, the most tenacious power of 
inference, the widest spirit of combination, must be 
tasked and tasked severely, in order to solve the 
problems which belong to this portion of science. 
And the persons who have been employed on these 
problems, and who have brought to them the high 



DEDUCTIVE HABITS. 



247 



and admirable qualities which such an office requires, 
have justly excited in a very eminent degree the ad- 
miration which mankind feel for great intellectual 
powers. Their names occupy a distinguished place in 
literary history; and probably there are no scientific 
reputations of the last century higher, and none more 
merited, than those earned by the great mathemati- 
cians who have laboured with such wonderful suc- 
cess in unfolding the mechanism of the heavens; such 
for instance as D'Alembert, Clairault, Euler, La- 
grange, Laplace. 

But it is still important to recollect, that the men- 
tal employments of men, while they are occupied in 
this portion of the task of the formation of science, 
are altogether different from that which takes place 
in the mind of a discoverer, who, for the first time, 
seizes the principle which connects phenomena be- 
fore unexplained, and thus adds another original 
truth to our knowledge of the universe. In explain- 
ing, as the great mathematicians just mentioned have 
done, the phenomena of the solar system by means 
of the law of universal gravitation, the conclusions 
at which they arrived were really included in the 
truth of the law T itself, whatever skill and sagacity it 
might require to develope and extricate them from 
the general principle. But when Newton conceived 
and established the law itself, he added to our know- 
ledge something which was not contained in any 
truth previously known, nor deducible from it by any 
course of mere reasoning. And the same distinction, 
in all other cases, obtains, between these processes 
which establish the principles, generally few and 
simple, on which our sciences rest, and those rea- 
sonings and calculations, founded on the principles 
thus obtained, which constitute by far the larger por- 
tion of the common treatises on the most complete of 
the sciences now cultivated. 

Since the difference is so great between the pro- 
cess of inductive generalization of physical facts, and 
that of mathematical deduction of consequences, it is 



248 



RELIGIOUS VIEWS, 



not surprising that the two processes should imply 
different mental powers and habits. However rare 
the mathematical talent, in its highest excellence, 
may be. it is far more common, if we are to judge 
from the history of science, than the genius which 
divines the general laws of nature. We have several 
good mathematicians in every age: we have few 
great discoverers in the whole history of our spe- 
cies. 

The distinction being thus clearly established be- 
tween original discovery and derivative speculation, 
between the ascent to principles and the descent from 
them, we have further to observe, that the habitual 
and exclusive prosecution of the latter process may 
sometimes exercise an unfavourable effect on the 
mind of the student, and may make him less fitted 
and ready to apprehend and accept truths different 
from those with which his reasonings are concerned. 
We conceive, for example, that a person labours 
under gross error, who believes the phenomena of 
the world to be altogether produced by mechanical 
causes, and who excludes from his view all reference 
to an intelligent First Cause and Governor. But we 
conceive that reasons may be shown which make it 
more probable that error of such a kind should find 
a place in the mind of a person of deductive, than of 
inductive habits:- — of a mere mathematician or lo- 
gician, than of one who studies the facts of the na- 
tural world and detects their laws. 

The person whose mind is employed in reducing 
to law and order and intelligible cause the complex 
facts of the material world, is compelled to look be- 
yond the present state of his knowledge, and to turn 
his thoughts to the existence of principles higher than 
those which he yet possesses. He has seen occasions 
when facts that at first seemed incoherent and ano- 
malous, were reduced to rule and connexion: and 
when limited rules were discovered to be included in 
some rule of superior generality. He knows that all 
facts and appearances, all partial laws, however con- 



DEDUCTIVE HABITS. 



249 



fused and casual they at present seem, must still, in 
reality, have this same kind of bearing and depend- 
ence; — must be bound together by some undiscovered 
principle of order ; — must proceed from some cause 
working by most steady rules ; — must be included in 
some wide and fruitful general truth. He cannot 
therefore consider any principles which he has al- 
ready obtained, as the ultimate and sufficient reason 
of that which he sees. There must be some higher 
principle, some ulterior reason. The effort and strug- 
gle by which he endeavours to extend his view, makes 
him feel that there is a region of truth not included 
in his present physical knowledge ; the very imper- 
fection of the light in which he works his way, sug- 
gests to him that there must be a source of clearer 
illumination at a distance from him. 

We must allow that it is scarcely possible to de- 
scribe in a manner free from some vagueness and 
obscurity, the effect thus produced upon the mind by 
the efforts which it makes to reduce natural pheno- 
mena to general laws. But we trust it will still be 
allowed that there is no difficulty in seeing clearly 
that a different influence may result from this pro- 
cess, and from the process of deductive reasoning 
which forms the main employment of the mathema- 
tical cultivators and systematic expositors of physi- 
cal science in modern times. Such persons are not 
led by their pursuits to any thing beyond the general 
principles, which form the basis of their explanations 
and applications. They acquiesce in these; they 
make these their ultimate grounds of truth ; and they 
are entirely employed in unfolding the particular 
truths which are involved in the general truth. 
Their thoughts dwell little upon the possibility of the 
laws of nature being other than we find them to be, 
or on the reasons why they are not so ; and still less 
on those facts and phenomena which philosophers 
have not yet reduced to any rule ; which are lawless to 
us, though we know that, in reality, they are governed 
by some principle of order and harmony. On the 



250 



RELIGIOUS VIEWS. 



contrary, by assuming perpetually the existing laws 
as the basis of their reasoning, without question or 
doubt, and by employing such language that these 
law 7 s can be expressed in the simplest and briefest 
form, they are led to think and believe as if these 
law 7 s w r ere necessarily and inevitably what they are. 
Some mathematicians indeed have maintained that 
the highest laws of nature with which we are ac- 
quainted, the laws of motion and the law of universal 
gravitation, are not only necessarily true, but are 
even self-evident and certain a priori, like the truths 
of geometry. And though the mathematical culti- 
vator of the science of mechanics may not adopt this 
as his speculative opinion, he may still be so far in- 
fluenced by the tendency from which it springs, as 
to rest in the mechanical law 7 s of the universe as ul- 
timate and all-sufficient principles, without seeing in 
them any evidence of their having been selected and 
ordained, and thus without ascending from the world 
to the thought of an Intelligent Ruler. He may thus 
substitute for the Deity certain axioms and first prin- 
ciples, as the cause of all. And the follower of New- 
ton may run into the error with which he is some- 
times charged, of thrusting some mechanic cause 
into the place of God, if he do not raise his views, 
as his master did, to some higher cause, to some 
source of all forces, laws, and principles. 

When, therefore, we consider the mathematicians 
who are employed in successfully applying the me- 
chanical philosophy, as men well deserving of honour 
from those who take an interest in the progress of sci- 
ence, we do rightly; but it is still to be recollected, that 
in doing this they are not carrying us to any higher 
point of view in the knowledge of nature than we had 
attained before : they are only unfolding the conse- 
quences, which were already virtually in our posses- 
sion, because they were implied in principles already 
discovered : — they are adding to our knowledge of 
effects, but not to our knowledge of causes : — they 
are not making any advance in that progress of 



DEDUCTIVE HABITS. 



251 



which Newton spoke, and in which he made so vast 
a stride, in which " every step made brings us nearer 
to the knowledge of the first cause, and is on that 
account highly to be valued." And as in this ad- 
vance they have no peculiar privileges or advan- 
tages, their errors of opinion concerning it, if they 
err, are no more to be wondered at, than those of 
common men; and need as little disturb or distress 
us, as if those who committed them had confined 
themselves to the study of arithmetic or of geometry. 
If we can console and tranquillize ourselves con- 
cerning the defective or perverted views of religious 
truth entertained by any of our fellow men, we need 
find no additional difficulty in doing so when those 
who are mistaken are great mathematicians, who 
have added to the riches and elegance of the me- 
chanical philosophy. And if we are seeking for ex- 
traneous grounds of trust and comfort on this subject, 
we may find them in the reflection ; — that, whatever 
may be the opinions of those who assume the causes 
and laws of that philosophy and reason from them, the 
views of those admirable and ever-honoured men who 
first caught sight of these laws and causes, impressed 
them with the belief that this is " the fabric of a great 
and good God ;" that " it is man's duty to pour out 
his soul in praise of the Creator;" and that all this 
beautiful system must be referred to " a first cause, 
which is certainly not mechanical." 

2. We may thus, with the greatest propriety, deny 
to the mechanical philosophers and mathematicians 
of recent times any authority with regard to their 
views of the administration of the universe ; w T e have 
no reason whatever to expect from their speculations 
any help, when we attempt to ascend to the first 
cause and supreme ruler of the universe. But we 
might perhaps go further, and assert that they are 
in some respects less likely than men employed in 
other pursuits, to make any clear advance towards 
such a subject of speculation. Persons whose thoughts 
are thus entirely occupied in deduction are apt to 



252 



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forget that this is, after all, only one employment of 
the reason among more ; only one mode of arriving 
at truth, needing to have its deficiencies completed 
by another. Deductive reasoners, those who culti- 
vate science, of whatever kind, by means of ma- 
thematical and logical processes alone, may acquire 
an exaggerated feeling of the amount and value of 
their labours. Such employments, from the clear- 
ness of the notions involved in them, the irresistible 
concatenation of truths which they unfold, the sub- 
tlety which they require, and their entire success in 
that which they attempt, possess a peculiar fascina- 
tion for the intellect. Those who pursue such studies 
have generally a contempt and impatience of the 
pretensions of all those other portions of our know- 
ledge, where from the nature of the case, or the 
small progress hitherto made in their cultivation, a 
more vague and loose kind of reasoning seems to be 
adopted. Now if this feeling be carried so far as to 
make the reasoner suppose that these mathematical 
and logical processes can lead him to all th§ know- 
ledge and all the certainty which we need, it is 
clearly a delusive feeling. For it is confessed on all 
hands, that all which mathematics or which logic 
can do, is to develope and extract those truths, as 
conclusions, which were in reality involved in the 
principles on which our reasonings proceeded.* 
And this being allowed, we cannot but ask how we 
obtain these principles 1 from what other source of 
knowledge we derive the original truths which we 
thus pursue into detail ? since it is manifest that such 
principles cannot be derived from the proper stores 
of mathematics or logic. These methods can gene- 
rate no new truth ; and all the grounds and elements 

* 44 Since all reasoning may be resolved into syllogisms, and 
since in a syllogism the premises do virtually assert the conclu- 
sion, it follows at once, that no truth can be elicited by any 
process of reasoning." — Whately's Logic, p. 223. 

Mathematics is the logic of quantity, and to this science the 
observation here quoted is strictly applicable. 



DEDUCTIVE HABITS. 



253 



of the knowledge which, through them, we can ac- 
quire, must necessarily come from some extraneous 
source. It is certain, therefore, that the mathema- 
tician and the logician must derive from some pro- 
cess different from their own, the substance and 
material of all our knowledge, whether physical or 
metaphysical, physiological or moral. This process, 
by which we acquire our first principles, (without 
pretending here to analyse it,) is obviously the gene- 
ral course of human experience, and the natural 
exercise of the understanding ; our intercourse with 
matter and with men, and the consequent growth in 
our minds of convictions and conceptions such as 
our reason can deal with, either by her systematic 
or unsystematic methods of procedure. Supplies 
from this vast and inexhaustible source of original 
truths are requisite, to give any value whatever to 
the results of our deductive processes, whether ma- 
thematical or logical ; while on the other hand, there 
are manv branches of our knowledge, in which we 
possess a large share of original and derivative con- 
victions and truths, but where it is nevertheless at 
present quite impossible to erect our knowledge into 
a complete system ; — to state our primary and inde- 
pendent truths, and to show how on these all the rest 
depend by the rules of art. If the mathematician is 
repelled from speculations on morals or politics, on 
the beautiful or the right, because the reasonings 
which they involve have not mathematical precision 
and conclusiveness, he will remain destitute of much 
of the most valuable knowledge which man can ac- 
quire. And if he attempts to mend the matter by 
giving to treatises on morals, or politics, or criticism, 
a form and a phraseology borrowed from the verv 
few tolerably complete physical sciences which exist, 
it will be found that he is compelled to distort and 
damage the most important truths, so as to deprive 
them of their true shape and import, in order to force 
them into their places in his artificial system. 

If therefore, as we have said, the mathematical 
y 



254 



RELIGIOUS VIEWS. 



philosopher dwells in his own bright and pleasant 
land of deductive reasoning, till he turns with disgust 
from all the speculations, necessarily less clear and 
conclusive, in which his imagination, his practical 
faculties, his moral sense, his capacity of religious 
hope and belief, are to be called into action, he be- 
comes, more than common men, liable to miss the 
road to truths of extreme consequence. 

This is so obvious, that charges are frequently 
brought against the study of mathematics, as unfitting 
men for those occupations which depend upon our 
common instinctive convictions and feelings, upon 
the unsystematic exercise of the understanding with 
regard to common relations and common occur- 
rences. Bonaparte observed of Laplace, when he 
was placed in a public office of considerable import- 
ance, that he did not discharge it in so judicious and 
clear sighted a manner as his high intellectual fame 
might lead most persons to expect* " He sought," 
that great judge of character said, " subtleties in 
every subject, and carried into his official employ- 
ments the spirit of the method of infinitely small 
quantities," by which the mathematician solves his 
more abstruse problems. And the complaint that 
mathematical studies make men insensible to moral 
evidence and to poetical beauties, is so often repeat- 
ed as to show that some opposition of tendency is 
commonly perceived between that exercise of the in- 
tellect which mathematics requires and those pro- 
cesses which go on in our minds when moral charac- 
ter or imaginative beauty is the subject of our con- 
templation. 

* A l'interieur le ministre Quinette fut remplace par Laplace, 
geometre du premier rang, mais qui ne tarda pas a se montrer 
administrates plus que mediocre : des son premier travail les 
consuls s'aper^urent qu'ils s'etaient trompes : Laplace ne sais- 
issait aucune question sous son vrai point de vue : il cherchait 
des subtilites partout, n'avait que des idees problematiques, et 
portait enfin l'esprit. des infiniment petits dans 1'administration. 
— Memoires Merits a Ste Htlene, i. 3. 



DEDUCTIVE HABITS. 



255 



Thus, while we acknowledge all the beauty and 
all the value of the mathematical reasonings by 
which the consequences of our general laws are de- 
duced, we may yet consider it possible that a philo- 
sopher, whose mind has been mainly employed, and 
his intellectual habits determined, by this process of 
deduction, may possess, in a feeble and imperfect de- 
gree only, some of those faculties by which truth is 
attained, and especially those truths which regard 
our relation to that mind, the origin of all law, the 
source of first principles, which must be immeasur- 
ably elevated above all derivative truths. It would, 
therefore, be far from surprising, if there should be 
found, among the great authors of the developements 
of the mechanical philosophy, some who had refused 
to refer the phenomena of the universe to a supreme 
mind, purpose, and will. And though this world be, 
to a believer in the Being and government of God, a 
matter of sorrow and pain, it need not excite more 
surprise than if the same were true of a person of 
the most ordinary endowments, when it is recollect- 
ed in w 7 hat a disproportionate manner the various 
faculties of such a philosopher may have been culti- 
vated. And our apprehensions of injury to man- 
kind from the influence of such examples will dimi- 
nish, when we consider, that those mathematicians 
whose minds have been less partially exercised, 
the great discoverers of the truths which others 
apply, the philosophers who have looked upwards as 
well as downwards, to the unknown as well as to 
the known, to ulterior as well as proximate princi- 
ples, have never rested in this narrow and barren 
doctrine ; but have perpetually looked forwards, be- 
yond mere material laws and causes, to a First 
Cause of the moral and material world, to which 
each advance in philosophy might bring them nearer, 
though it must ever remain indefinitely beyond their 
reach. 

It scarcely needs, perhaps, to be noticed, that what 
we here represent as the possible source of error is, 



256 



RELIGIOUS VIEWS. 



not the perfection of the mathematical habits of the 
mind, but the deficiency of the habit of apprehending 
truth of other kinds;— not a clear insight into the 
mathematical consequences of principles, but a want 
of a clear view of the nature and foundation of 
principles; — not the talent for generalizing geomet- 
rical or mechanical relations, but the tendency to 
erect such relations into ultimate truths and efficient 
causes. The most consummate mathematical skill 
may accompany and be auxiliary to the most earnest 
piety, as it often has been. And an entire command 
of the conceptions and processes of mathematics is 
not only consistent with, but is the necessary condi- 
tion and principal instrument of every important 
step in the discovery of physical principles. Newton 
was eminent above the philosophers of his time, in 
no one talent so much as in the power of mathemati- 
cal deduction. When he had caught sight of the law 
of universal gravitation, he traced it to its conse- 
quences with a rapidity, a dexterity, a beauty of 
mathematical reasoning which no other person could 
approach ; so that on this account, if there had been 
no other, the establishment of the general law was 
possible to him alone. He still stands at the head of 
mathematicians as well as of philosophical discover- 
ers. But it never appeared to him, as it may have 
appeared to some mathematicians who have em- 
ployed themselves on his discoveries, that the gene- 
ral law was an ultimate and sufficient principle: that 
the point to which he had hung his chain of deduc- 
tion was the highest point in the universe. Lagrange, 
a modern mathematician of transcendent genius, was 
in the habit of saying, in his aspirations after future 
fame, that Newton was fortunate in having had the 
system of the world for his problem, since its theory 
could be discovered once only. But Newton himself 
appears to have had no such persuasion that the 
problem he had solved was unique and final: he 
laboured to reduce gravity to some higher law, and 
the forces of other physical operations to an analogy 



FINAL CAUSES. 



257 



with those of gravity, and declared that all these 
were but steps in our advance towards a first cause. 
Between us and this first cause, the source of the 
universe and of its laws, we cannot doubt that there 
intervene many successive steps of possible discovery 
and generalization, not less wide and striking than 
the discovery of universal gravitation : but it is still 
more certain that no extent or success of physical 
investigation can carry us to any point which is not 
at an immeasurable distance from an adequate know- 
ledge of Him. 



CHAPTER VII. 

On Final Causes. 

We have pointed out a great number of instances 
where the mode in which the arrangements of na- 
ture produce their effect, suggests, as we conceive, 
the belief that this effect is to be considered as the 
end and purpose of these arrangements. The im- 
pression which thus arises, of design and intention 
exercised in the formation of the world, or of the 
reality of Final Causes, operates on men's minds so 
generally, and increases so constantly on every ad- 
ditional examination of the phenomena of the uni- 
verse, that we cannot but suppose such a belief to 
have a deep and stable foundation. And we con- 
ceive that in several of the comparatively few cases 
in which such a belief has been rejected, the averse- 
ness to it has arisen from the influence of some of 
the causes mentioned in the last chapter ; the exclu- 
sive pursuit, namely, of particular trains and modes 
of reasoning, till the mind becomes less capable of 
forming the conceptions and making the exertions 
which are requisite for the apprehension of truths 
not included among its usual subjects of thought. 

\2 



258 



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L This seems to be the case with those who main- 
tain that purpose and design cannot be inferred or 
deduced from the arrangements which we see around 
us by any process of reasoning. We can reason 
from effects to causes, say such writers, only in cases 
where we know something of the nature of the cause. 
We can infer from the works of men, the existence 
of design and purpose, because we know, from past 
observation, what kind of works human design and 
purpose can produce. But the universe, considered 
as the work of God, cannot be compared with any 
corresponding work, or judged of by any analogy 
with known examples. How then can we, in this 
case, they ask, infer design and purpose in the artist 
of the universe ? On what principles, on what axioms, 
can w r e proceed, which shall include this necessarily 
singular instance, and thus give legitimacy and va- 
lidity to our reasonings ? 

What has already been said on the subject of the 
two different processes by which we obtain princi- 
ples, and by which we reason from them, will sug- 
gest the reply to these questions. When we collect 
design and purpose from the arrangements of the 
universe, w T e do not arrive at our conclusion by a 
train of deductive reasoning, but by the conviction 
w T hich such combinations as we perceive immediate- 
ly and directly impress upon the mind. " Design 
must have had a designer." But such a principle 
can be of no avail to one whom the contemplation 
or the description of the world does not impress with 
the perception of design. It is not, therefore, at the 
end, but at the beginning of our syllogisms, not 
among remote conclusions, but among original prin- 
ciples, that we must place the truth, that such ar- 
rangements, manifestations, and proceedings as we 
behold about us imply a Being endowed with con- 
sciousness, design, and will, from whom they proceed. 

This is inevitably the mode in which such a con- 
viction is acquired ; and that it is so, we may the 
more readily believe, when we consider that it is the 



FINAL CAUSES. 



259 



case with the design and will which we ascribe to 
man, no less than in that which we believe to exist 
in God. At first sight we might perhaps be tempted 
to say, that we infer design and purpose from the 
works of man in one case, because we have known 
these attributes in other cases produce effects in some 
measure similar. But to this we must reply, by ask- 
ing how w r e come to know the existence of human 
design and purpose at first, and at all? What we 
see around us are certain appearances, things, suc- 
cessions of events ; how come we ever to ascribe to 
other men the thought and will of which we are con- 
scious ourselves ? How do we come to believe that 
there are other men? How are we led to elevate, 
in our conceptions, some of the objects which we 
perceive into persons ? No doubt their actions, their 
w r ords induce us to do this. We see that the mani- 
festations w T hich we observe must be so understood, 
and no othewise. We feel that such actions, such 
events must he connected by consciousness and 
personality; that the actions are not the actions of 
things, but of persons ; not necessary and without 
significance, like the falling of a stone, but voluntary 
and with purpose like what we do ourselves. But 
this is not a result of reasoning: we do not infer this 
from any similar case which we have known; since 
we are now speaking of the first conception of a will 
and purpose different from our own. In arriving at 
such knowledge, we are aided only by our own con- 
sciousness of what thought, purpose, will, are: and 
possessing this regulative principle, we so decipher 
and interpret the complex appearances which sur- 
round us, that we receive irresistibly the persuasion 
of the existence of other men, with thought and will 
and purpose like our own. And just in the same 
manner, when we examine attentively the adjust- 
ment of the parts of the human frame to each other 
and to the elements, the relation of the properties of 
the earth to those of its inhabitants, or of the physi- 
cal to the moral nature of man, the thought must 



260 



RELIGIOUS VIEWS. 



arise and cling to our perceptions, however little it 
be encouraged, that this system, every w r here so full 
of wonderful combinations, suited to the preservation, 
and well-being of living creatures, is also the expres- 
sion of the intention, wisdom, and goodness of a per- 
sonal creator and governor. 

We conceive then that it is so far from being an 
unsatisfactory or unphilosophical process by which 
we collect the existence of a Deity from the works 
of creation, that the process corresponds most close- 
ly with that on which rests the most steadfast of our 
convictions, next to that of our own existence, the 
belief of the existence of other human beings. If 
any one ever went so far in scepticism as to doubt 
the existence of any other person than himself, he 
might, so far as the argument from final causes is 
concerned, reject the being of God as well as that of 
man ; but, without dwelling on the possibility of such 
fantasies, when we consider how impossible it is for 
men in general not to attribute personality, purpose, 
thought, will to each other, in virtue of certain com- 
binations of appearances and actions, we must deem 
them most consistent and reasonable in attributing 
also personality and purpose to God, in virtue of the 
whole assemblage of appearances and actions which 
constitute the universe, full as it is of combinations 
from which such a suggestion springs. The vivid- 
ness, the constancy of the belief of a wise and good 
Being, thus governing the world, may be different in 
different men, according to their habit of directing 
their thoughts to the subject ; but such a belief is 
undoubtedly capable of becoming lively and steadfast 
in the highest degree. It has been entertained and 
cherished by enlightened and well-regulated minds 
in all ages ; and has been, at least since the rise of 
Christianity, not only the belief, but a pervading 
and ruling principle of action of many men, and of 
whole communities. The idea may be rendered 
more faint by turning the mind away from it, and 3 
perhaps by indulging too exclusively in abstract and 



FINAL CAUSES. 



261 



general speculations. It grows stronger by an actual 
study of the details of the creation ; and, as regards 
the practical consequences of such a belief, by a 
habit of referring our actions and hopes to such a 
Governor. In this way it is capable of becoming as 
real and fixed an impression as that of a human 
friend and master ; and all that we can learn, by 
observing the course of men's feelings and actions, 
tends to convince us, that this belief of the being 
and presence and government of God, leads to the 
most elevated and beneficial frame of mind of which 
man is capable. 

2. How natural and almost inevitable is this per- 
suasion of the reality of Final Causes and consequent 
belief in the personality of the Deity, we may ga- 
ther by observing how constantly it recurs to the 
thoughts, even of those who, in consequence of 
such peculiarities of mental discipline as have been 
described, have repelled and resisted the impression. 

Thus, Laplace, of whom we have already spoken, 
as one of the greatest mathematicians of modern 
times, expresses his conviction that the supposed evi- 
dence of final causes will disappear as our know- 
ledge advances, and that they only seem to exist in 
those cases where our ignorance leaves room for 
such a mistake. " Let us run over," he says, " the 
history of the progress of the human mind and its 
errors : we shall perpetually see final causes pushed 
away to the bounds of its knowledge. These causes, 
which Newton removed to the limits of the solar 
system, were not long ago conceived to obtain in 
the atmosphere, and employed in explaining meteors : 
they are, therefore, in the eyes of the philosopher 
nothing more than the expression of the ignorance 
in which we are of the real causes." 

We may observe that we have endeavoured to 
give a very different, and, as we believe, a far truer 
view of the effect which philosophy has produced on 
our knowledge of final causes. We have shown, 
we trust, that the notion of design and end is trans- 



262 



RELIGIOUS VIEWS. 



ferred by the researches of science, not from the 
domain of our knowledge to that of our ignorance, 
but merely from the region of facts to that of laws. 
We hold that, in this form, final causes in the at- 
mosphere are still to be conceived to obtain, no less 
than in an earlier state of meteorological knowledge ; 
and that Newton was right, when he believed that 
he had established their reality in the solar system, 
not expelled them from it. 

But our more peculiar business at present is to 
observe that Laplace himself, in describing the ar- 
rangements by which the stability of the solar system 
is secured, uses language which shows how irre- 
sistibly these arrangements suggest an adaptation to 
its preservation as an end If in his expressions we 
were to substitute the Deity for the abstraction 
" nature*' which he employs, his reflection would 
coincide w^ith that which the most religious philoso- 
pher would entertain. " It seems that 6 God' has 
ordered every thing in the heavens to ensure the du- 
ration of the planetary system, by views similar to 
those which He appears to us so admirably to follow 
upon the earth, for the preservation of animals and 
the perpetuity of species.* This consideration alone 
would explain the disposition . of the system, if it 
were not the business of the geometer to go further." 
It may be possible for the geometer to go further ; 
but he must be strangely blinded by his peculiar pur- 
suits, if, when he has discovered the mode in which 
these views are answered, he supposes himself to 
have obtained a proof that there are no views at all. 
It would be as if the savage, who had marvelled at 
the steady working of the steam engine, should cease 
to consider it a work of art, as soon as the self-re- 

* II semble que la nature ait tout dispose dans le ciel, pour as- 
surer la duree du systeme planetaire, par des vues semblables a 
eelles qu'elle nous parait suivre si admirablement sur la terre, 
pour la conservation des individus et la perpetuite des especes. 
— Syst. du Monde, p. 442. 



FINAL CAUSES. 



263 



gulating part of the mechanism had been explained 
to him. 

The unsuccessful struggle in which those persons 
engage, who attempt to throw off the impression of 
design in the creation, appears in an amusing man- 
ner through the simplicity of the ancient Roman 
poet of this school. Lucretius maintains that the 
eye was not made for seeing, nor the ear for hear- 
ing. But the terms in which he recommends this 
doctrine show how hard he knew it to be for men to 
entertain such an opinion. His advice is, — 

Illud in his rebus vitium vehe?nenter et istum 
Effugere errorem, vitareque prcemeditator, 
Lumina ne facias oculorum clara creata, 
Prospicere at possimus. iv% 823. 

'Gainst their preposterous error guard thy mind 
Who say each organ was for use design'd ; 
Think not the visual orbs, so clear, so bright, 
Were furnish'd for the purposes of sight. 

Undoubtedly the poet is so far right, that a most 
" vehement" caution and vigilant " premeditation" 
are necessarv to avoid the " vice and error" of such 
a persuasion. The study of the adaptations of the 
human frame is so convincing, that it carries the 
mind with it, in spite of the resistance suggested by 
speculative systems. Cabanis, a modern French 
physiological writer of great eminence, may be se- 
lected as a proof of this. Both by the general cha- 
racter of his own speculations, and by the tone of 
thinking prevalent around him, the consideration of 
design in the works of nature was abhorrent from 
his plan. Accordingly, he joins in repeating Bacon's 
unfavourable mention of final causes. Yet when he 
comes to speak of the laws of reproduction of the 
human race, he appears to feel himself compelled to 
admit the irresistible manner in which such views 
force themselves on the mind. " I regard," he says, 
" with the great Bacon, the philosophy of final 
causes as barren ; but I have elsewhere acknow- 



264 



RELIGIOUS VIEWS. 



ledged that it was very difficult for the most cautious 
man (l'homme le plus reserve) never to have recourse 
to them in his explanations."* 

3. It may be worth our while to consider for a 
moment the opinion here referred to by Cabanis, of 
the propriety of excluding the consideration of final 
causes from our natural philosophy. The great au- 
thority of Bacon is usually adduced on this subject. 
" The handling of final causes," says he, " mixed 
with the rest in physical inquiries, hath intercepted 
the severe and diligent inquiry of all real and physi- 
cal causes, and given men the occasion to stay upon 
these satisfactory and specious causes, to the great 
arrest and prejudice of farther discovery."f 

A moment's attention will show how well this re- 
presentation agrees with that which we have urged, 
and how far it is from dissuading the reference to 
final causes in reasonings like those on which we are 
employed. Final causes are to be excluded from 
physical inquiry; that is, we are not to assume that 
we know the objects of the Creator's design, and 
put this assumed purpose in the place of a physical 
cause. We are not to think it a sufficient account 
of the clouds that they are for watering the earth, 
(to take Bacon's examples.) or " that the solidness 
of the earth is for the station and mansion of living 
creatures." The physical philosopher has it for his 
business to trace clouds to the laws of evaporation 
and condensation ; to determine the magnitude and 
mode of action of the forces of cohesion and crystal- 
lization by which the materials of the earth are made 
solid and firm. This he does, making no use of the 
notion of final causes: and it is precisely because he 
has thus established his theories independently of any 
assumption of an end, that the end, when after all, it 
returns upon him and cannot be evaded, becomes an 
irresistible evidence of an intelligent legislator. He 

* Rapports du Physique et du Moral de 1' Homme, i. 299. 
f De Augment. Sc. ii. 105. 



FINAL CAUSES. 



265 



finds that the effects, of which the use is obvious, are 
produced by most simple and comprehensive laws ; 
and when he has obtained this view, he is struck by 
the beauty of the means, by the refined and skilful 
manner in w T hich the useful effects are brought about; 
— points different from those to which his researches 
were directed. We have already seen, in the very 
case of which we have been speaking, namely, the 
laws by w r hich the clouds are formed and distribute 
their showers over the earth, how T strongly those who 
haye most closely and extensively examined the ar- 
rangements there employed (as Howard, Dalton, and 
Black) have been impressed with the harmony and 
beauty which these contrivances manifest. 

We may find a further assertion of this view of 
the proper use of final causes in philosophy, by re- 
ferring to the works of one of the greatest of our phi- 
losophers, and one of the most pious of our writers, 
Boyle, who has an Essay on this subject. <fc I am by 
all means," says he, "for encouraging the contem- 
plation of the celestial part of the world, and the 
shining globes that adorn it, and especially the sun 
and moon, in order to raise our admiration of the 
stupendous power and wisdom of him who w^as able 
to frame such immense bodies : and notwithstanding 
their vast bulk and scarce conceivable rapidity, keep 
them for so many ages constant both to the lines and 
degrees of their motion, without interfering with one 
another. And doubtless we ought to return thanks 
and praises to the divine goodness for having so 
placed the sun and moon, and determined the former, 
or else the earth, to move in particular lines for the 
good of men and other animals ; and how disadvan- 
tageous it would have been to the inhabitants of the 
earth if the luminaries had moved after a different 
manner. I dare not, however, affirm that the sun, 
moon, and other celestial bodies were made solely 
for the use of man: much less presume to prove one 
system of the world to be true and, another false ; be- 
cause the former is better fitted to the convenience of 

z 



266 



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mankind, or the other less suited, or perhaps altogether 
useless to that end" 

This passage exhibits, we conceive, that combina- 
tion of feelings which ought to mark the character 
of the religious natural philosopher ; an earnest piety- 
ready to draw nutriment from the contemplation of 
established physical truths ; joined with a philosophi- 
cal caution, which is not seduced by the anticipation 
of such contemplations, to pervert the strict course 
of physical inquiry. 

It is precisely through this philosophical care and 
scrupulousness that our views of final causes acquire 
their force and value as aids to religion. The object 
of such views is not to lead us to physical truth, 
but to connect such truth, obtained by its proper 
processes and methods, with our views of God, the 
master of the universe, through those laws and rela- 
tions which are thus placed beyond dispute. 

Bacon's comparison of final causes to the vestal 
virgins is one of those poignant sayings, so frequent 
in his writings, which it is not easy to forget. " Like 
them," he says, " they are dedicated to God, and are 
barren." But to any one who reads his work it will 
appear in what spirit this was meant. " Not because 
those final causes are not true and worthy to be in- 
quired, being kept within their own province." (Of 
the Advancement of Learning, b. ii. p. 142.) If he 
had had occasion to develope his simile, full of latent 
meaning as his similes so often are, he would proba- 
bly have said, that to these final causes barrenness 
was no reproach, seeing they ought to be., not the 
mothers but the daughters of our natural sciences ; 
and that they were barren, not by imperfection of 
their nature but in order that they might be kept 
pure and undefiled, and so fit ministers in the temple 
of God. 



267 



CHAPTER VIII. 

On the Physical Agency of the Deity. 

L We are not to expect that physical investiga- 
tion can enable us to conceive the manner in which 
God acts upon the members of the universe. The 
question, "Canst thou by searching find out God?" 
must silence the boastings of science as well as the 
repinings of adversity. Indeed, science shows us, 
far more clearly than the conceptions of every day 
reason, at what an immeasurable distance w T e are 
from any faculty of conceiving how the universe, ma- 
terial and moral, is the work of the Deity. But with 
regard to the material world, we can at least go so 
far as this : — we can perceive that events are brought 
about, not by insulated interpositions of divine power 
exerted in each particular case, but by the establish- 
ment of general laws. This, which is the view of the 
universe proper to science, whose office it is to search 
out these laws, is also the view which, throughout 
this work, we have endeavoured to keep present to 
the mind of the reader. We have attempted to show 
that it combines itself most readily and harmoniously 
with the doctrines of Natural Theology; that the 
arguments for those doctrines are strengthened, the 
difficulties which affect them removed, by keeping it 
steadily before us. We conceive, therefore, that the 
religious philosopher will do well to bear this con- 
ception in his mind. God is the author and governor 
of the universe through the laws which he has given 
to its parts, the properties which he has impressed 
upon its constituent elements ; these laws and pro- 
perties are, as we have already said, the instruments 
with which he works: the institution of such laws, 



268 



RELIGIOUS VIEWS. 



the selection of the quantities which they involve, 
their combination and application, are the modes in 
which he exerts &nd manifests his power, his wisdom, 
his goodness: through these attributes, thus exercised, 
the Creator of all, shapes, moves, sustains, and guides 
the visible creation. 

This has been the view of the relation of the Deity 
to the universe entertained by the most sagacious 
and comprehensive minds ever since the true object 
of natural philosophyhas been clearly and steadilyap- 
prehended. The great writer who was the first to give 
philosophers a distinct and commanding view of this 
object, thus expresses himself in his "Confession of 
Faith:" " I believe — that notwithstanding God hath 
rested and ceased from creating since the first Sab- 
bath, yet, nevertheless, he doth accomplish and fulfil 
his divine will in all things, great and small, singular 
and general, as fully and exactly by providence, as 
he could by miracle and new creation, though his 
working be not immediate and direct, but by com- 
pass; not violating nature, which is his own law upon 
the creature." 

And one of our own time, whom we can no longer 
hesitate to place among the worthiest disciples of the 
school of Bacon, conveys the same thought in the 
following passage: " The Divine Author of the uni- 
verse cannot be supposed to have laid dow T n particu- 
lar laws, enumerating all individual contingencies, 
w r hich his materials have understood and obey — this 
w T ould be to attribute to him the imperfections of 
human legislation ; — but rather, by creating them 
endued w r ith certain fixed qualities and pow r ers, he 
has impressed them in their origin with the spirit, 
not the letter of his law, and made all their subse- 
quent combinations and relations inevitable conse- 
quences of this first impression."* 

2. This, which thus appears to be the mode of the 
Deity's operation in the material world, requires 



* Herschel on the Study of Nat. Phil. Art. 28* 



AGENCY OF THE DEITY. 



269 



some attention on our part in order to understand it 
with proper clearness. One reason of this is, that it 
is a mode of operation altogether different from that 
in which we are able to make matter fulfil our de- 
signs. Man can construct exquisite machines, can 
call in vast powers, can form extensive combinations, 
in order to bring about results which he has in view. 
But in all this he is only taking advantage of laws of 
nature which already exist ; he is applying to his use 
qualities which matter already possesses. Nor can he 
by any effort do more. He can establish no new law 
of nature which is not a result of the existing ones. 
He can invest matter with no new properties which 
are not modifications of its present attributes. His 
greatest advances in skill and power are made when 
he calls to his aid forces which before existed unem- 
ployed, or when he discovers so much of the habits 
of some of the elements as to be able to bend them 
to his purpose. He navigates the ocean by the as- 
sistance of the winds which he canngt raise or still : 
and even if we suppose him able to control the course 
of these, his yet unsubjugated ministers, this could 
only be done by studying their characters, by learn- 
ing more thoroughly the laws of air and heat and 
moisture. He cannot give the minutest portion of the 
atmosphere new relations, a new course of expan- 
sion, new laws of motion. But the Divine operations, 
on the other hand, include something much higher. 
They take in the establishment of the laws of tKe 
elements, as well as the combination of these laws 
and the determination of the distribution and quan- 
tity of the materials on which they shall produce 
their effect. We must conceive that the Supreme 
Pow r er has ordained that air shall be rarefied, and 
water turned into vapour, by heat; no less than that 
he has combined air and water so as to sprinkle the 
earth with showers, and determined the quantity of 
heat and air and water, so that the showers shall be 
as beneficial as they are. 

We may and must, therefore, in our conceptions 
z2 



270 



RELIGIOUS VIEWS. 



of the Divine purpose and agency, go beyond the 
analogy of human contrivances. We must conceive 
the Deity., not only as constructing the most refined 
and vast machinery, with which, as we have already 
seen, the universe is filled; but we must also imagine 
him as establishing those properties by which such 
machinery is possible: as giving to the materials of 
his structure the qualities by which the material is 
fitted to its use. There i§ much to be found, in na- 
tural objects, of the same kind of contrivance which 
is common to these and to human inventions: there 
are mechanical devices, operations of the atmo- 
spheric elements, chemical processes: — many such 
have been pointed out. many more exist. But be- 
sides these cases of the combination of means, which 
we seem able to understand without much difficulty, 
we are led to consider the Divine Being as the author 
of the laws of chemical, of physical, and of mechani- 
cal action, and of such other laws as make matter 
what it is; — and this is a view which no analogy of 
human inventions, no knowledge of human powers, 
at all assists us to embody or understand. Science, 
therefore, as we have said, while it discloses to us 
the mode of instrumentality employed by the Deity, 
convinces us, more effectually than ever, of the im- 
possibility of conceiving God's actions by assimi- 
lating them to our own. 

, 3. The laws of material nature, such as we have 
described them, operate at all times, and in all places; 
affect every province of the universe, and involve 
every relation of its parts. Wherever these laws ap- 
pear, we have a manifestation of the intelligence 
by which they were established. But a law supposes 
an agent, and a power; for it is the mode according 
to which the agent proceeds, the order according to 
which the power acts. Without the presence of such 
an agent, of such a power, conscious of the relations 
on which the law depends, producing the effects which 
the law prescribes, the law can have no efficacy, no 
existence. Hence we infer that the intelligence by 



AGENCY OF THE DEITY. 



271 



which the law is ordained, the power by which it is 
pat in action, must be present at all times and in all 
places where the effects of the law occur; that thus 
the knowledge and the agency of the Divine Being 
pervade every portion of the universe, producing all 
action and passion, all permanence and change. The 
laws of nature are the laws which he, in his wisdom, 
prescribes to his own acts ; his universal presence is 
the necessary condition of any course of events, his 
universal agency the only origin of any efficient 
force. 

This view of the relation of the universe to God 
has been entertained by many of the most eminent of 
those who have combined the consideration of the 
material world with the contemplation of God him- 
self. It may therefore be of use to illustrate it by a 
few quotations, and the more so, as w T e find this idea 
remarkably dwelt upon in the works of that writer 
whose religious views must always have a peculiar 
interest for the cultivators of physical science, the 
great Newton. 

Thus, in the observations on the nature of the 
Deity with which he closes the " Opticks," he de- 
clares the various portions of the world, organic and 
inorganic, " can be the effect of nothing else than the 
wisdom and skill of a powerful ever living Agent, 
who being in all places, is more able by his will to 
move the bodies within his boundless uniform senso- 
rium, and thereby to form and reform the parts of 
the universe, than we are by our will to move the 
parts of our own bodies." And in the Scholium at 
the end of the " Principia," he says, " God is one and 
the same God always and every where. He is omni- 
present, not by means of his virtue alone, but also by 
his substance, for virtue cannot subsist without sub- 
stance. In him all things are contained, and move, 
but without mutual passion: God is not acted upon 
by the motions of bodies; and they suffer no resist- 
ance from the omnipresence of God." And he refers 
to several passages confirmatory of this view, not 



272 



RELIGIOUS VIEWS. 



only in the Scriptures, but also in writers who hand 
dowTi to us the opinions of some of the most philoso- 
phical thinkers of the pagan w 7 orld. He does not 
disdain to quote the poets, and among the rest, the 
verses of Virgil ; 

Principio ccelum ac terras camposque liquentes 
Lucentemque globum lunse, Titaniaque astra, 
Spiritus intus alit, totamque infusa per artus 
Mens agitat molem et magno se corpore miscet : 

warning his reader, however, against the doctrine 
which such expressions as these are sometimes un- 
derstood to express. "All these things he rules, not 
as the sold of the world, but as the Lord of all." 

Clarke, the friend and disciple of Newton, is one 
of those who has most strenuously put forwards the 
opinion of which w r e are speaking, "All things which 
we commonly say are the effects of the natural pow- 
ers of matter and laws of motion, are indeed (if we 
will speak strictly and properly.) the effects of God's 
acting upon matter continually and at every moment, 
either immediately by himself, or mediately by some 
created intelligent being. Consequently there is no 
such thing as the course of nature, or the power of 
nature," independent of the effects produced by the 
will of God. 

Dugald Stewart has adopted and illustrated the 
same opinion, and quotes with admiration the well- 
known passage of Pope, concerning the Divine Agen- 
cy, which 

44 Lives through all life, extends through all extent, 
Spreads undivided, operates unspent." 

Mr. Stewart, with no less reasonableness than 
charity, asserts the propriety of interpreting such 
passages according to the scope and spirit of the 
reasonings with which they are connected ; # since, 



* Elem. of Phil. ii. p. 273. 



INCOMPREHENSIBLE NATURE OF GOD. 



273 



though by a captious reader they might be associ- 
ated with erroneous views of the Deity, a more fa- 
vourable construction will often see in them only the 
results of the necessary imperfection of our language, 
when we dwell upon the omnipresence and universal 
activity of God. 

Finally, we may add that the same opinions still 
obtain the assent of the best philosophers and divines 
of our time. Sir John Herschel says, (Discourse on 
the Study of Natural Philosophy, p. 37.) " We would 
no way be understood to deny the constant exercise 
of His direct power in maintaining the system of na- 
ture; or the ultimate emanation, of every energy 
which material agents exert, from his immediate will, 
acting in conformity with his own laws." And the 
Bishop of London, in a note to his " Sermon on the 
duty of combining religious instruction with intellec- 
tual culture," observes, " the student in natural phi- 
losophy will find rest from all those perplexities which 
are occasioned by the obscurity of causation, in the 
supposition, which although it was discredited by the 
patronage of Malebranche and the Cartesians, has 
been adopted by Clarke and Dugald Stewart, and 
which is by far the most simple and sublime account 
of the matter; that all the events, which are continu- 
ally taking place in the different parts of the material 
universe, are the immediate effects of the divine 
agency." 



CHAPTER IX. 

On the Impression produced by considering the Nature 
and Prospects of Science ; or, on the Impossibility 
of the Progress of our Knowledge ever enabling us 
to comprehend the Nature of the Deity. 

If we were to stop at the view presented in the 
last chapter, it might be supposed that — by consider- 



274 



RELIGIOUS VIEWS. 



ing God as eternal and omnipresent, conscious of all 
the relations, and of all the objects of the universe, 
instituting laws founded on the contemplation of 
these relations, and carrying these laws into effect 
by his immediate energy, — we had attained to a con- 
ception, in some degree definite, of the Deity, such 
as natural philosophy leads us to conceive him. But 
by resting in this mode of conception, we should 
overlook, or at least should disconnect from our 
philosophical doctrines, all that most interests and 
affects us in the character of the Creator and Pre- 
server of the world; — namely, that he is the law- 
giver and judge of our actions; the proper object of 
our prayer and adoration ; the source from which 
we may hope for moral strength here, and for the 
reward of our obedience and the elevation of our 
nature in another state of existence. 

We are very far from believing that our philoso- 
phy alone can give us such assurance of these im- 
portant truths as is requisite for our guidance and 
support ; but we think that even our physical philo- 
sophy will point out to us the necessity of proceed- 
ing far beyond that conception of God, w r hich re- 
presents him merely as the mind in which reside all 
the contrivance, law, and energy of the material 
world. We believe that the view of the universe 
w r hich modern science has already opened to us, 
compared with the prospect of what she has still to 
do in pursuing the path on which she has just enter- 
ed, will show us how immeasurably inadequate such 
a mode of conception would be : and that if w r e take 
into our account, as w T e must in reason do, all that 
of which we have knowledge and consciousness, and 
of which we have as yet no systematic science, we 
shall be led to a conviction that the Creator and Pre- 
server of the material world must also contain in 
him such properties and attributes as imply his moral 
character, and as fall in most consistently with all 
that we learn in any other way of his providence 
and holiness, his justice and mercy. 



INCOMPREHENSIBLE NATURE OF GOD. 



275 



L The sciences which have at present acquired 
any considerable degree of completeness, are those 
in which an extensive and varied collection of phe- 
nomena, and their proximate causes, have been re- 
duced to a few simple general laws. Such are 
Astronomy and Mechanics, and perhaps, so far as 
its physical conditions are concerned, Optics. Other 
portions of human knowledge can be considered as 
perfect sciences, in any strict sense of the term, only 
w r hen they have assumed this form ; when the va- 
rious appearances which they involve are reduced 
to a few principles, such as the laws of motion and 
the mechanical properties of the luminiferous ether. 
If we could trace the endless varieties of the forms 
of crystals, and the complicated results of chemical 
composition, to some one comprehensive law neces- 
sarily pointing out the crystalline form of any given 
chemical compound, Mineralogy would become an 
exact science. As yet, however, we can scarcely 
boast of the existence of any other such sciences 
than those which w T e at first mentioned : and so far 
therefore as we attempt to give definite ness to our 
conception of the Deity, by considering him as the 
intelligent depositary and executor of laws of na- 
ture, we can subordinate to such a mode of concep- 
tion no portion of the creation, save the mechanical 
movements of the universe, and the propagation and 
properties of light. 

2. And if w r e attempt to argue concerning the na- 
ture of the laws and relations which govern those 
provinces of creation whither our science ha.s not 
yet reached, by applying some analogy borrowed 
from cases where it has been successful, we have no 
chance of attaining any except the most erroneous 
and worthless guesses. The history of human spe- 
culations, as well as the nature of the objects of 
them, shows how certainly this must happen. The 
great generalizations which have been established in 
one department of our knowledge, have been appli- 
ed in vain to the purpose of throwing light on the 



276 



RELIGIOUS VIEWS. 



other portions which still continue in obscurity. 
When the Newtonian philosophy had explained so 
many mechanical facts, by the two great steps, — of 
resolving the action of a whole mass into the actions 
of its minutest particles, and considering these par- 
ticles as centres of force, — attempts were naturally 
soon made to apply the same mode of explanation 
to facts of other different kinds. It was conceived 
that the whole of natural philosophy must consist in 
investigating the laws of force by w T hich particles of 
different substances attracted and repelled, and thus 
produced motions, or vibrations to and from the par- 
ticles. Yet what were the next great discoveries in 
physics ? The action of a galvanic wire upon a 
magnet ; which is not to attract or repel it, but to 
turn it to the right and left; to produce motion, not 
to or from, but transverse to the line drawn to the 
acting particles ; and again, the undulatory theory 
of light, in which it appeared that the undulations 
must not be longitudinal, as all philosophers, follow- 
ing the analogy of all cases previously conceived, 
had, at first, supposed them to be, but transverse to 
the path of the ray. Here, though the step from 
the known to the unknown was comparatively small, 
when made conjecturally it was made in a direction 
very wide of the truth. How impossible then must 
it be to attain in this manner to any conception of a 
law which shall help us to understand the whole 
government of the universe ! 

3. Still, however, in the law T s of the luminiferous 
ether, and of the other fluid, (if it be another fluid) 
by which galvanism and magnetism are connected, 
we have something approaching nearly to mechani- 
cal action, and, possibly, hereafter to be identified 
with it. But we cannot turn to any other part of our 
physical knowledge, without perceiving that the gulf 
which separates it from the exact sciences is yet 
wider and more obscure. Who shall enunciate for 
us, and in terms of what notions, the general law of 
chemical composition and decomposition ? sometimes 



INCOMPREHENSIBLE NATURE OF GOD. 277 

mdeed we give the name of attraction to the affinity 
by which we suppose the particles of the various in- 
gredients of bodies to be aggregated ; but no one 
can point out any common feature between this and 
the attractions of which alone we know the exact 
effects. He who shall discover the true general law 
of the forces by which elements form compounds, 
will probably advance as far beyond the discoveries 
of Newton, as Newton went beyond Aristotle. But 
who shall say in what direction this vast flight shall 
be, and what new views it shall open to us of the 
manner in which matter obeys the laws of the 
Creator? 

4. But suppose this flight performed; — we are yet 
but at the outset of the progress which must carry 
us towards Him. We have yet to begin to learn all 
that we are to know concerning the ultimate laws 
of organized bodies. What is the principle of life ? 
What is the rule of that action of which assimila- 
tion, secretion, developement, are manifestations? 
and which appears to be farther removed from mere 
chemistry than chemistry is from mechanics. And 
what again is the new principle, as it seems to be, 
which is exhibited in the irritability of an animal nerve? 
the existence of a sense ? How different is this from 
all the preceding notions i No efforts can avoid or 
conceal the vast but inscrutable chasm. Those theo- 
rists, who have maintained most strenuously the pos- 
sibility of tracing the phenomena of animal life to the 
influence of physical agents, have constantly been 
obliged to suppose a mode of agency altogether dif- 
ferent from any yet known in physics. Thus La- 
marck, one of the most noted of such speculators, in 
describing the course of his researches, says, " I was 
soon persuaded that the internal sentiment consti- 
tuted a power which it was necessary to take into 
account." And Bichat, another writer on the same 
subject, while he declares his dissent from Stahl, and 
the earlier speculators, who had referred every thing 
in the economy of life to a single principle, which 

a a 



278 



RELIGIOUS VIEWS. 



they called the anima, the vital principle, and so 
forth, himself introduces several principles, or laws, 
all utterly foreign to the region of physics ; namely, 
organic sensibility, organic contractility, animal sen- 
sibility, animal contractility, and the like. Supposing 
such principles really to exist, how far enlarged and 
changed must our views be before we can conceive 
these properties, including the faculty of perception, 
which they imply, to be produced by the will and 
power of one supreme Being, acting by fixed laws, 
Yet without conceiving this, we cannot conceive the 
agency of that Deity, w T ho is incessantly thus acting, 
in countless millions of forms and modes. 

How strongly then does science represent God to 
us as incomprehensible ! his attributes as unfathoma- 
ble ! His power, his wisdom, his goodness, appear 
in each of the provinces of nature which are thus 
brought before us ; and in each, the more we study 
them, the more impressive, the more admirable do 
they appear. When then we find these qualities 
manifested in each of so many successive ways, and 
each manifestation rising above the preceding by 
unknown degrees, and through a progression of un- 
known extent, what other language can we use con- 
cerning such attributes than that they are infinite ? 
What mode of expression can the most cautious phi- 
losophy suggest, other than that He, to whom we 
thus endeavour to approach, is infinitely wise, pow- 
erful, and good ? 

5. But with sense and consciousness the history of 
living things only begins. They have instincts, affec- 
tions, passions, will. How entirely lost and bewil- 
dered do we find ourselves when we endeavour to 
conceive these faculties communicated by means of 
general laws ! Yet they are so communicated from 
God, and of such laws he is the lawgiver. At what 
an immeasurable interval is he thus placed above 
every thing which the creation of the inanimate 
world alone would imply; and how far must he 



INCOMPREHENSIBLE NATURE OF GOD. 279 

transcend all ideas founded on such laws as we find 
there ! 

6. But we have still to go further and far higher. 
The world of reason and of morality is a part of the 
same creation, as the world of matter and of sense. 
The will of man is swayed by rational motives ; its 
workings are inevitably compared with a rule of ac- 
tion ; he has a conscience which speaks of right and " 
wrong. These are laws of man's nature no less than 
the laws of his material existence, or his animal im- 
pulses. Yet what entirely new conceptions do they 
involve ? How incapable of being resolved into, or 
assimilated to, the results of mere matter, or mere 
sense! Moral good and evil, merit and, demerit, 
virtue and depravity, if ever they are the subjects of 
strict science, must belong to a science which views 
these things, not with reference to time or space, or 
mechanical causation, not with reference to fluid or 
ether, nervous irritability or corporeal feeling, but to 
their own proper modes of conception; with refe- 
rence to the relations with which it is possible that 
these notions may be connected, and not to relations 
suggested by other subjects of a completely extra- 
neous and heterogeneous nature. And according to 
such relations must the laws of the moral world be 
apprehended, by any intelligence which contemplates 
them at all. 

There can be no wider interval in philosophy than 
the separation which must exist between the laws of 
mechanical force and motion, and the laws of free 
moral action. Yet the tendeney of men to assume, 
in the portions of human knowledge which are out 
of their reach, a similarity of type to those w T ith 
which they are familiar, can leap over even this 
interval. Laplace has asserted that " an intelli- 
gence which, at a given instant, should know all the 
forces by which nature is urged, and the respective 
situation of the beings of which nature is composed, 
if, moreover, it were sufficiently comprehensive to 
subject these data to calculation, would include in 



280 



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the same formula, the movements of the largest bo- 
dies of the universe and those of the slightest atom. 
Nothing would be uncertain to such an intelligence, 
and the future, no less than the past, would be pre- 
sent to its eyes." If we speak merely of mechanical 
actions, this may, perhaps, be assumed to be an ad- 
missible representation of the nature of their connex- 
ion in the sight of the supreme intelligence. But to 
the rest of what passes in the world, such language 
is altogether inapplicable. A formula is a brief mode 
of denoting a rule of calculating in which numbers 
are to be used : and numerical measures are appli- 
cable only to things of which the relation depend on 
time and space. By such elements, in such a mode, 
how are we to estimate happiness and virtue, thought 
and will ? To speak of a formula w r ith regard to such 
things, would be to assume that their laws must needs 
take the shape of those law T s of the material world 
which our intellect most fully comprehends. A more 
absurd and unphilosophical assumption we can hard- 
ly imagine. 

We conceive, therefore, that the laws by which 
God governs his moral creatures, reside in his mind, 
invested with that kind of generality, whatever it be. 
of which such laws are capable ; but of the charac- 
ter of such general laws, we know nothing more cer- 
tainly than this, that it must be altogether different 
from the character of those laws which regulate the 
material world. The inevitable necessity of such a 
total difference is suggested by the analogy of all the 
knowledge which we possess and all the concep- 
tions w T hich we can form. And, accordingly, no per- 
sons, except those whose minds have been biassed 
by some peculiar habit or course of thought, are 
likely to run into the confusion and perplexity which 
are produced by assimilating too closely the govern- 
ment and direction of voluntary agents to the pro- 
duction of trains of mechanical and physical phe- 
nomena. In whatever manner voluntary and moral 
agency depend upon the Supreme Being, it must be 



INCOMPREHENSIBLE NATURE GF GOD. 



281 



in some such way that they still continue to bear the 
character of will, action, and morality. And, though 
too exclusive an attention to material phenomena 
may sometimes have made physical philosophers 
blind to this manifest difference, it has been clearly 
seen and plainly asserted by those who have taken 
the most comprehensive views of the nature and 
tendency of science. " I believe," says Bacon, in his 
Confession of Faith, "that, at the first the soul of 
man was not produced by heaven or earth, but was 
breathed immediately from God ; so that the ways 
and proceedings of God with spirits are not included 
in nature; that is in the laws of heaven and, earth; 
but are reserved to the law of his secret will and 
grace ; wherein God worketh still, and resteth not 
from the work of redemption, as he resteth from the 
work of creation ; but continueth working to the end 
of the world." We may be permitted to observe 
here, that, when Bacon has thus to speak of God's 
dealings with his moral creatures, he does not take 
his phraseology from those sciences which can offer 
none but false and delusive analogies : but helps out 
the inevitable scantiness of our human knowledge, 
by words borrowed from a source more fitted to 
supply our imperfections. Our natural speculations 
cannot carry us to the ideas of " grace" and " re- 
demption;" but in the wide blank which they leave, 
of all that concerns our hopes of the Divine support 
and favour, the inestimable knowledge which reve- 
lation, as we conceive, gives us, finds ample room 
and appropriate place. 

7. Yet even in the view of our moral constitution 
which natural reason gives, we may trace laws that 
imply a personal relation to our Creator. How can 
we avoid considering that as a true view of man's 
being and place, without which, his best faculties are 
never fully developed, his noblest energies never 
called out, his highest point of perfection never 
reached ? Without the thought of a God over alL 
superintending our actions, approving our virtues* 



282 



RELIGIOUS VIEWS. 



transcending our highest conceptions of good, man 
would never rise to those higher regions of moral 
excellence which w 7 e know him to be capable of at- 
taining. " To deny a God," again says the great 
philosopher, " destroys magnanimity and the raising 
of human nature ; for take an example of a dog, and 
mark what a generosity and courage he will put on, 
when he finds himself maintained by a man ; who, 
to him, is instead of a God, or melior natura : which 
courage is manifestly such, as that creature, without 
that confidence of a better nature than his own, 
could never attain. So man, when he resteth and 
assureth himself upon divine protection and favour, 
gathereth a force and faith, which human nature 
could not obtain. Therefore, as atheism is in all re- 
spects hateful, so in this, that it depriveth human 
nature of the means to exalt itself above human 
frailty."* 

Such a law, then, of reference to a Supremely 
Good Being, is impressed upon our nature, as the 
condition and means of its highest moral advance- 
ment. And strange indeed it would be if we should 
suppose, that in a system where all besides indicates 
purpose and design, this law should proceed from no 
such origin ; and no less inconceivable, that such a 
law, purposely impressed upon man to purify and 
elevate his nature, should delude and deceive him. 

8. Nothing remains, therefore, but that the Crea- 
tor, who, for purposes that even we can see to be 
wise and good, has impressed upon man this ten- 
dency to look to him for support, for advancement, 
for such happiness as is reconcileable with holiness ; 
— to believe him to be the union of all perfection, the 
highest point of all intellectual and moral excellence; 
- — is, in reality, such a guardian and judge, such a 
good, and wise, and perfect Being, as we thus irre- 
sistibly conceive him. It would indeed be extrava- 
gant to assert that the imagination of the creature, 

* Bacon. Essay on Atheism, 



INCOMPREHENSIBLE NATURE OF GOD. 283 

itself the work of God, can invent a higher point of 
goodness, of justice, of holiness, than the Creator 
himself possesses: that the Eternal Mind, from whom 
our notions of good and right are derived, is not him- 
self directed by the rules which these notions imply. 

It is difficult to dwell steadily on such thoughts. 
But they will at least serve to confirm the view which 
it was our object to illustrate ; namely, how incom- 
parably the nature of God must be elevated above 
any conceptions which our natural reason enables us 
to form ; and we have been led to these reflections, it 
will be recollected, by following the clue of which 
science gave us the beginning. The Divine Mind 
must be conceived by us as the seat of those laws of 
nature which we have discovered. It must be no 
less the seat of those laws which we have not yet 
discovered, though these may and must be of a cha- 
racter far different from any thing we can guess. 
The Supreme Intelligence must therefore contain the 
laws, each according to their true dependence, of or- 
ganic life, of sense, of animal impulse, and must con- 
tain also the purpose and intent for which these pow- 
ers were put in play. But the Governing Mind must 
comprehend also the laws of the responsible crea- 
tures which the world contains, and must entertain 
the purposes for which their responsible agency was 
given them. It must include these laws and purposes, 
connected by means of the notions, which responsi- 
bility implies, of desert and reward, of moral excel- 
lence in various degrees, and of well-being as asso- 
ciated with right doing. All the laws which govern 
the moral world are expressions of the thought and 
intentions of our Supreme Ruler. All the contri- 
vances for moral no less than for physical good, for 
the peace of mind, and other rewards of virtue, for 
the elevation and purification of individual character, 
for the civilization and refinement of states, their ad- 
vancement in intellect and virtue, for the diffusion of 
good, and the repression of evil ; all the blessings that 
wait on perseverance and energy in a good cause; 



284 



RELIGIOUS VIEWS. 



on unquenchable love of mankind, and unconquer- 
able devotedness to truth ; on purity and self-denial ; 
on faith, hope, and charity; — all these things are in- 
dications of the character, will, and future intentions 
of that God, of whom we have endeavoured to track 
the footsteps upon earth, and to show his handiwork 
in the heavens. " This God is our God, for ever and 
ever." And if, in endeavouring to trace the tenden- 
cies of the vast labyrinth of laws by whicji the uni- 
verse is governed, we are sometimes lost and be- 
wildered, and can scarce, or not at all, discern the 
line by which pain, and sorrow 7 , and vice fall in with 
a scheme directed to the strictest right and greatest 
good, w r e yet find no room to faint or falter ; knowing 
that these are the darkest and most tangled recesses 
of our knowledge; that into them science has as yet 
cast no ray of light; that in them reason has as yet 
caught sight of no general law by w T hich we may se- 
curely hold : while, in those regions where we can 
see clearly, where science has thrown her strongest 
illumination upon the scheme of creation ; where we 
have had displayed to us the general laws which give 
rise to all multifarious variety of particular facts; — 
we find all full wisdom, and harmony, and beauty: 
and all this w r ise selection of means, this harmonious 
combination of laws, this beautiful symmetry of re- 
lations, directed, with no exception which human in- 
vestigation has yet discovered, to the preservation, 
the diffusion, the well-being of those living things, 
which, though of their nature we know so little, we 
cannot doubt to be the worthiest objects of the Crea- 
tor's care. 



FINIS. 



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